


Kiwi

by Roshwen



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Also mild warning because of Snake People, Angst, Basically a kid fic a case fic and OT3 issues fic all rolled into one glorious mess, Because spoiler alert Jake and Cassandra do not take this too well at first, Established OT3 Relationship, Ezekiel is a really good dad actually, Family Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Kid Fic, Mild warning for Ezekiel’s penchant for ridiculous nicknames, No Kiwi is not a real name but it might as well be, Oh shit Ezekiel has a kid, TW for mentions of abuse, it all works out in the end though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 78,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: He already braced himself for a barrage of questions, but Cassandra only said, with a soft voice and even softer eyes: ‘Ezekiel, is there anything we can do to help?’That was it. No further questions.Which meant Ezekiel could stop mentally rehearsing ways to sayso yeah I’ve got a daughter I kind of never told you about. She’s ten years old and she’s adorable and she knows everything about the cowboy and the princess and the ninja goddess and the knight and the… Flynn but I never told you about her because the moment never seemed to be right. Surprise!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I know I've got a terrible track record with chaptered fics... still I have high hopes for this one. Enjoy!

‘Okay, that’s it,’ Cassandra declared with a vengeance as she shook the dust out of her hair, her top and her shoes, ‘Paris and I are done. Anyone have any suggestions for a new favorite city? One _without_ creepy catacombs?’

‘Aw, come on Cass,’ Ezekiel said, his hair grey with cobwebs so that he looked at least fifty years older than he really was. ‘You gotta admit. The dancing skeletons were funny.’

‘Real funny,’ Jake growled, then stopped to let out a resounding sneeze. ‘Especially the part where they tried to tear us all to pieces.’ He sneezed again and pulled out a tissue from the box on Eve’s desk top wipe the grime away, but all it did was spread it more evenly across his face. This earned him a snigger from Ezekiel and even a giggle from Cassandra, so Jake glared, threw the tissue away with a lot more force than strictly necessary and declared: ‘I’m going home. Anyone who wants to come with me, better follow me right now.’

Cassandra and Ezekiel did not need to be told twice. Especially not because that was the moment Jenkins decided to emerge from wherever he had been hiding out, and demanded to know who they thought was going to clean up this mess? ‘And don’t give me that ‘the pixies will do it,’ Mr. Jones, you know very well the pixies have upped their cleaning fees again and they are way too expensive to hire for a bit of dust while there are _three Librarians who know very well how a dustpan and broom work_.’

That last bit was shouted at their retreating backs as the three hastily fled the Annex. Or at least, started to flee the Annex, because halfway through the hallway, Ezekiel’s phone started to buzz and he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the number.

‘Everything okay?’ Jake asked, stopping as well and turning around to face Ezekiel, who was staring at his phone, pale-faced and wide-eyed like it had suddenly grown a human head. The phone buzzed again and Ezekiel snapped back to life with a vehement _fuck_ that seemed a very succinct answer to Jake’s question.

\---

 _Fuck_. The number on his screen was both a number he usually really liked to see, and the only number that should _not_ be calling right now. Because as far as Ezekiel knew, the person on the other end was, at the moment, safe and sound (though perhaps a little bored) at school in London, learning to read and write and do maths and all those things that ten-year-old kids should learn.

Besides, their designated call time was every Friday at 8pm Kiwi time. And Ezekiel had made it _very_ clear that there were to be no calls outside the designated call time, except in extreme emergencies (texting was allowed, though. Nay, encouraged).

And yet here he was, standing in the Annex hallway at 1.30am on a Tuesday, which was 9.30am Kiwi time. And she was calling him. _Fuck_.

Stone was asking something, but Ezekiel didn’t respond. Instead he pressed the Answer button and, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut, said: ‘Hey Kiwi, what’s up?’

At first, there was only silence at the other end, a rustling static that crackled in Ezekiel’s ear. Then a very small voice whispered: ‘Dad, can you come and get me?’

This was followed by a series of small sobs, which grew a lot bigger almost immediately. The sound felt like a bucket of ice was being poured down Ezekiel’s spine as he started back towards the Annex as fast as he could. Jenkins and the dusty remnants of their latest adventure had already disappeared, but Ezekiel didn’t notice. ‘Kiwi, where are you?’ he asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice because this was one of those other rules that only should be broken in extreme emergencies: no visits unless they were planned in advance and only when and where Ezekiel deemed it safe enough.

The answer was lost in a crescendo of crying and Ezekiel had to close his eyes and count his breaths for a moment before he said as soothingly as he could manage: ‘Okay. Okay, Kiwi, it’s okay. I’m gonna track your phone and then I’ll be with you in ten minutes, I promise.’

He wasn’t sure if she heard him: Kiwi was outright wailing now, in the way of someone who has been holding in their tears for way too long: high and keening, gasping for breath in between the sobs. It clawed at Ezekiel's gut in much the same way as the Parisian skeletons had tried to do earlier that afternoon, except this time he did not have Jenkins’ anti necromancing thingamajig to make it stop. The only thing he could do, as he booted up his laptop and opened his tracking software, was continue to babble soothing nonsense into his phone in the hope that sooner or later, it would have some sort of effect. Fingers flying over the keyboard, he held his phone between shoulder and cheek as he talked, soothed and reassured in the face of an unknown crisis.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and he nearly jumped. He spun around and saw Jake and Cassandra, both looking at him with an almost identical worried frown on their faces. The only difference between them was that Cassandra was biting her bottom lip and Jake was glaring a little, in the way he always did when there was something going on he did not understand.

 _Crap_. He had tuned them out as soon as he heard Kiwi’s voice, not seeing the confused looks they threw him or even noticing the fact that they followed him back to the Annex. But of course they had; the three of them were a team now, in every sense of the word, and they would not have gone home without him. Even though he might have wished they had, because _crap_.

He already braced himself for a barrage of questions, but Cassandra only said, with a soft voice and even softer eyes: ‘Ezekiel, is there anything we can do to help?’

That was it. There was no _who the fuck is calling you at this time of night_. No _why are you freaking out like this_. No _that sounds like a kid on the other end, why are you talking to a kid, who is this kid anyway_.

No _is there something you need to tell us_.

Which meant Ezekiel could stop mentally rehearsing ways to say _so yeah I’ve got a daughter I kind of never told you about. She’s ten years old and she’s adorable and she knows everything about the cowboy and the princess and the ninja goddess and the knight and the… Flynn but I never told you about her because the moment never seemed to be right. Surprise!_

Instead he paused for a second. Took a deep breath, told Kiwi it was _going to be okay, really, I promise_ once again and shook his head. ‘Thanks guys,’ he said, and his voice did _not_ crack, it most certainly did _not_ , ‘but you’re just as beat as I am. Go home, get some sleep. I’ll sort this out and see you tomorrow.’

They still hesitated and Ezekiel wished they wouldn’t. Not because he did not appreciate what they were trying to do, because he did. He really did, probably more than they would ever know. But because at that moment, his tracking software showed a bright red dot labeled _Kiwi_  smack dab in the middle of Trafalgar Square in London. _Not_ the ideal place for a, presumably, unattended ten-year-old.

‘Guys, please. Go home,’ he said, attention already focused elsewhere as he made his way over to the globe next to the Back Door. Punching in coordinates, he said in a harsh voice, hoping that it would cut through the ongoing despair at the other end: ‘Kiwi, listen to me. I want you to go into the big building on your right, the one that says _National Gallery_ , and I want you to wait for me in room 2. It’s the first room on the left as you go up the stairs, have you got that?’

Kiwi stopped crying for a moment to let out a soft whimper, which Ezekiel took as a yes. ‘Good,’ he said, his voice as steady and reassuring as he could make it. ‘You wait there, and if someone asks you what you’re doing in there, just give them the phone, okay? I’ll explain it to them.’

Another whimper, but Ezekiel didn’t hear. Because the Back Door was lighting up, Jake and Cassandra had finally left him alone after squeezing his shoulder and kissing his cheek, respectively, and Ezekiel was on his way to London. On his way to get his kid out of whatever mess was trying to swallow her whole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to meet Emmeline Jones, aka Kiwi!

At 10am on a weekday morning, Trafalgar Square was reasonably quiet. It was after the time the locals had gone to work and right before the tourist crowds really started coming in, so Ezekiel could dash across the square as fast as he could without having to worry about bowling over any selfie stick wielding teenagers.

Not that he would have worried if they had been there. There was only one thing on his mind as he barreled past the giant lions guarding Nelson’s Column, and that was that Kiwi never got this upset. Even when her mother had dropped her into his lap five years ago, Kiwi had only looked mildly sad before she had asked him if this meant she could get a puppy now.

 

> _‘Mommy says she’s all-er-gick,’ the kid said. (Emmeline, Ezekiel’s brain filled in. Emmeline Walker. Although I guess it’s going to be Emmeline Jones now._ Crap _.) ‘But I think she doesn’t like puppies. Do you like puppies?’_
> 
> _‘Everyone likes puppies,’ Ezekiel said, still on auto-pilot as the rest of him tried to make sense of whatever the hell just happened. ‘But puppies grow bigger and you have to walk them and everything. So how do you feel about bunny rabbits?’_

Through an absent mom, moving around a bit more often than she liked and the untimely death of her bunny rabbit, Kiwi hardly ever cried. But now stifled sobs were still sounding through the phone that was practically glued to Ezekiel’s ear as he told her _I’m on my way, I’m almost there just another minute and I’ll be right with you, you just hang on okay_. All while he tried to keep his heart from pounding out of his chest, a pounding which had nothing to do with running across Trafalgar Square or up two flights of stairs.

Then there was a museum foyer, another flight of stairs and finally, finally Room 2. It was a nice foyer, the stairs were pretty impressive and the artwork in the room was something that Stone would probably get really excited over, but Ezekiel had eyes for one thing and one thing only: the small figure huddled on one of the benches in the center of the room, clutching at her phone like it was a literal lifeline.

Ezekiel’s heart had been pounding just a second earlier. Now it stopped entirely for a moment. When it started up again, somehow it seemed to have moved into his throat and glass shards were cutting into his lungs with every breath.

‘Kiwi,’ he said, voice rough as he hung up the phone. ‘Kiwi, hey.’

The figure on the bench looked up and then a couple of things happened in quick succession.

First, there was the sound of a phone clattering to the ground. Then the bench was empty and Ezekiel was down on his knees, arms wrapped tight around a skinny frame and nose buried in a mass of soft brown hair. Eyes closed against the sudden stinging, he took a moment to breathe in the warm smell of freshly baked cookies before he pressed a fierce kiss to Kiwi’s temple and cupped her head to pull her _closer_. Kiwi had apparently finally run out of tears but she was trembling so much that she was practically vibrating out of his arms and her hands were scrunching so tight in his shirt that he could feel her nails digging into his skin. In response, Ezekiel squeezed her even harder as he started rocking her from side to side, muttering soothing nonsense into her ear that was as much for Kiwi's benefit as for his own.

 

> _That night, as he tucked her into his own bed before he got himself ready for a night on the couch, the kid (Emmeline. Who the fuck names their kid Emmeline.) clutched at his arm and looked at him with a face that was way too serious for a five-year-old. ‘Mommy isn’t coming back,’ she said and Ezekiel didn’t know his heart could break for a kid he had only just met._
> 
> _‘No,’ he said, because well, he didn't think she would be. Not anytime soon, anyway. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added, because wasn’t that what you were supposed to say in situations like this?_
> 
> _The kid (nope, not calling her Emmeline. Better think of something else) wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s okay,’ she said._
> 
> _No, it fucking isn’t, Ezekiel thought before he clumsily patted her hair and told her to go to sleep._

It took a long ten minutes and a few curious looks from the couple of tourists in the room, but eventually Kiwi’s breathing evened out. Bit by bit, the tension and terror started to melt away until at last she drew back a little and looked at Ezekiel. Her eyes were puffy and red with tears and there was still something that Ezekiel did _not_ like in the look on her face, but then she took a deep breath and smiled. It was a weak, watery and wobbly smile, but Ezekiel grinned back, trying not to feel crushed with relief.

‘There you are,’ he said softly, wiping a stray tear from her cheek with his thumb. ‘Come on, Kiwi.’

Kiwi hiccupped at the catchphrase before she whispered: ‘OK, Yodad.’

 

> _The kid was brown and small and chubby and had a New Zealand accent so thick you could cut it. It did not take Ezekiel long to come up with a better name than Emmeline._
> 
> _‘So here’s how we’re gonna do it, Kiwi,’ he told her after a couple of months of thinking and re-thinking. ‘I move around a lot and I can’t take you with me all the time. So I’m gonna find you a nice house and a nice school and someone to take care of you, and you can stay there. And I will come by as soon as I can and teach you everything they don’t teach you at school, okay?’_
> 
> _Kiwi nodded and Ezekiel breathed out. It looked like this having a kid thing might work out after all._

This time when Ezekiel pulled her back into his arms, it was for a proper hug rather than the life-or-death clinging from before. With Kiwi’s face tucked into the crook of his neck and Ezekiel nuzzling kisses all over her head, he almost forgot where they were until a museum guard pointedly cleared his throat behind them.

‘Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ the guard said. To the guy's credit, he made it sound apologetic rather than harsh. Ezekiel looked up and saw that more and more museum visitors had filtered into the room and that by now, him and Kiwi were becoming a more interesting sight than the paintings on the walls.

‘I understand,’ he said, gently dislodging Kiwi and standing up. She made a noise when he let her go that felt like a paper cut: small, but it stung nonetheless. ‘Come on, Kiwi. Let’s get out of here.’

The museum guard nodded and went back to making sure no one was stealing a painting while he wasn’t looking (and even in the midst of crisis, Ezekiel had already seen that robbing this museum would be a nice challenge, although by no means impossible) while Ezekiel took Kiwi’s hand in his, gave a reassuring squeeze and led her outside.

\---

The bright daylight outside almost surprised him. The lights in the museum had been dimmed and according to Ezekiel's body, it was so late at night that it was almost early morning again. Blinking, he stood in front of the museum exit for a moment before he looked down. ‘You wanna go get coffee?’ he asked.  
The sudden bright grin on Kiwi’s face was answer enough.

\---

Ten minutes later, they were tucked away in the back of a coffee shop near the museum, Ezekiel inhaling a double shot cappuccino and Kiwi looking delighted behind her salted caramel latte with extra whipped cream and chocolate drizzle. ( _Decaf_ , Ezekiel had added as she placed the order, trying not to laugh at the disappointed noise beside him.)

The delight disappeared almost immediately when Ezekiel put his cup down and fixed his daughter with a look. ‘Now,’ he said, voice soft but serious, ‘why don’t you tell me what in tarnation is going on with you.’

Not even the meme reference could keep Kiwi’s face from scrunching up again in an alarming way. Instead of breaking down, however, she took a huge gulp of coffee, swallowed heavily a couple of times and said: ‘Poppins got a new girlfriend.’

Silence fell as she studied the swirls of chocolate on her drink and Ezekiel patiently waited for the second ball to drop.

Then, in a small, strangled voice, Kiwi added: ‘and I think I killed her.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Poppins got a new girlfriend. And I think I killed her.' Kiwi, what the hell?

The life of Emmie Jones (don’t call her Emmeline if you want to live, and there’s only one person who’s allowed to call her Kiwi so don’t even think about that either) was, on a whole, pretty sweet. True, she didn’t see her dad as often as she would like and she still didn’t have a puppy. After the bunny rabbit disaster of 2015, her dad had said he’d had to _strongly reconsider_ getting her another pet.

But even without her dad or a puppy, she still lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood in London. There were other kids there, nice kids who where her friends and not-nice kids she and her friends could wage war against every so often. She had to go to school, but the teachers were cool and she liked learning things so she didn’t mind it that much.

And she had Poppins.

She didn’t even know what Poppins’ real name was. As soon as her dad had told her he was going to find her a nanny who would take care of her when he was away, she had asked, bouncing up and down with excitement: ‘Like Mary Poppins?’

Dad had laughed out loud at that and said with a grin: ‘ _Exactly_ like Mary Poppins.’

Emmie’s Poppins turned out to be a bit less apple-cheeked and chim-chim-cheery than the original. Instead he stood a little over six feet in his heavy black leather boots, with arms like tree trunks and a permanent scowl on his face that no spoonful of sugar could sweeten up. Dad had told her he was an ex-hitman, but then refused to tell her what a hitman was, exactly. For some reason, Emmie didn’t think it meant Poppins had written a lot of hit songs.

But when Poppins talked to Emmie, his voice was soft. He smiled as she told him about her boring schoolday, he made her tea and pretended not to notice when she snatched an extra biscuit out of the tin. And when he tucked her into bed at night and growled her a goodnight, she would reach out and kiss the top of his shaven head and then go to sleep, knowing that if Poppins was there, she was as safe as she could be.

But then Poppins got a girlfriend.

Emmie did _not_ like Poppins’ girlfriend.

Which was weird, because Poppins seemed to like his girlfriend a _lot_. He smiled at her a lot, which he never did at anyone but Emmie and sometimes her dad. And he touched her a lot as well, which he _never_ did to _anyone_ but Emmie. He smiled at her, he touched her and just two weeks ago, Emmie had caught them kissing in the kitchen, and she had been so shocked that she had completely forgotten why she had gone to the kitchen in the first place.

It wasn’t that she didn’t _want_ Poppins to have a girlfriend. Or that he hadn’t had girlfriends before. But usually, he kept them away from her and she didn’t get to meet them except in passing. Which was _fine_ by Emmie. But this one was there _all the time_. She practically lived with them, and Poppins had _never_ let one of his girlfriends live with them before. Not even Janine, who he had dated for almost a year and who had met Emmie only once or twice.

This girlfriend's name was Andi and if Emmie didn’t dislike her so much, she would have been really pretty. She was almost as tall as Poppins, but where Poppins was built like a tree, Andi was slender. She had jet black hair and sharp dark eyes set in a sharp, dark face. Her smile and her voice were sweet when she talked to Poppins, but as soon as she looked at Emmie, things changed. Then her smile and voice turned cold, and Poppins did not even seem to notice. He just looked at Andi and Emmie with a stupid little smile on his face and called them ‘his girls’ as if they were supposed to be a family now.

That was another thing that was weird and that Emmie did not like. But it was by no means the last.

No, really. There were just _so many_ things that were wrong about Andi. Like the fact that she made Poppins act all weird. He was smiling all the time, in a bit of a sappy dreamy way which looked _really_ weird. He called Andi ‘sweetykins’, which, _yikes_. And when Emmie had quietly told him that she did not like Andi all that much, he had actually gotten angry and revoked her TV privileges for the month. Emmie could live without TV (if Poppins had taken away her phone, she’d have been more upset), but. Poppins _never_ got angry with her for telling him things like that. It was usually the other way around: when Emmie told Poppins she did not like someone, which was not that often, Poppins _always_ took her seriously. _Always_.

Then there was something that happened a couple of days ago. Poppins had left the room to go to the bathroom and Andi had turned around and smiled at Emmie.

That was when Emmie went from _don’t like_ to _scared_. Because Andi’s eyes suddenly looked really weird and her teeth were a lot sharper as well. She didn’t look human anymore; instead she reminded Emmie a lot of something she had recently seen on Animal Planet. There had been meerkats and a snake and the snake had wanted to eat the meerkats and gotten ready to attack them before the head meerkat sounded the alarm and they all ran off to their burrows.

Right then, Andi looked like a snake and Emmie felt very much like a little meerkat.

\---

‘Hang on,’ Ezekiel said, frowning over his cappuccino. ‘What do you mean she looked like a snake?’

‘Her eyes,’ Kiwi said, clutching her empty latte cup. ‘They were those slits, like a snake’s. And she had these sharp teeth right here.’

She pointed at her canines. ‘And she hissed.’

Now Ezekiel put his cup down. ‘What do you mean she hissed?’

\---

‘Emmie Jonessss,’ Andi said, her voice sounding _nothing_ like the way it did when she talked to Poppins. ‘How’ssss your daddy doing, Emmie Jonessss?’

Emmie swallowed and tried to look as casual as she could. She instinctively knew that showing fear right now would _not_ be a good idea. ‘He’s okay,’ she said, swallowing again. ‘He’s at work right now.’

‘I bet he issss,’ Andi said with a smile that made Emmie feel cold all over. ‘Could you ssssend him a messssssssage, do you think?’

Emmie could, but she really, _really_ did not want to. Fortunately, that was when Poppins came back from the bathroom and Andi returned to her normal, human self before Emmie had time to blink.

\---

Ezekiel had gone very quiet when Kiwi talked about Andi’s semi-transformation. Then she stopped. She looked at him with a pleading look on her face and he could see she was silently begging him to believe her.

She didn’t have to worry, because Ezekiel did believe her. He just wished he didn’t.

‘Kiwi,’ he said, voice low to hide the stomach-churning terror that her story had wrought inside him, ‘do you know if Andi had any tattoos?’

Kiwi nodded and pointed at the twig that passed for her upper arm. ‘Right there. I don’t know what it was, it was like a band or something around her arm.’

Ezekiel closed his eyes. ‘Okay,’ he said, thinking that just once, it would have been nice to be wrong. ‘Now, about the part where you killed her.’

\---

After that, Emmie did not see Andi for three days, which was _fine_. But Poppins was still walking around with that weird look he had when he was smiling instead of scowling, so Emmie knew they had broken up with each other yet. That was a bit of a bummer. Because even though she must have imagined the entire Andi-turning-into-a-snake thing, that did not mean Emmie disliked Poppins’ girlfriend any the less. It was obvious Andi was not what she seemed, snake or not, and Emmie might not have much experience with dating (she was ten, after all), but she knew that being honest should be pretty important when you were boyfriend and girlfriend.

She should tell her dad something was going on. He might not believe her, but he would listen and tell her things would be alright and if she wanted, he would come by as soon as he could. Yeah, she would tell him as soon as he called again next Friday.

It was Monday then. She could wait five days. After all, what could happen in five days?

Quite a lot, it turned out. Because the next morning, she came downstairs to find Andi at the breakfast table alone. Poppins was nowhere to be seen, but the front door was open which meant he was probably taking out the trash.

‘Hello Emmie Jonessss,’ Andi said with a smile that showed all her teeth and yeah, she _definitely_ looked like a snake.

‘Hi,’ Emmie said carefully, frozen in the doorway.

‘Come closssser,’ Andi said, beckoning with her hand.

Emmie did not want to come closer, but for some reason, her legs didn’t listen to what she wanted. Step by reluctant step, she inched towards the table until she bumped into the chair Andi had pulled out for her. Then her knees gave out and she dropped heavily into the chair, shrinking under the staring gaze Andi was fixing her with.

‘Your daddy’ssss name’ssss Ezzzzekiel, issssn’t it?’ Andi asked. ‘Ezzzzekiel Jonessss?’

Emmie didn’t know why Andi was asking something she obviously already knew, but there was no use in denying it. So she nodded.

Then Andi made a mistake. Her hand shot out, fast as lightning as she grabbed Emmie’s arm. ‘And where’ssss your daddy now, then?’ she asked, but Emmie didn’t hear.

Emmie didn’t hear the question because she was too busy staring at the dark hand gripping her arm like a vice. Too busy noticing how Andi’s hand felt _cold_ and _scaly_ and _snake_. Too busy being rigid with terror before she heard her dad’s voice in her head, telling her what to do during one of their self-defense sessions.

_‘If someone grabs you,’ her dad said, ‘and me or Poppins aren’t there, then all bets are off. Do you understand? If someone grabs you, you do whatever it takes to get them to let you go, and then you run like hell. Go somewhere where a lot of people are, so that even if a bad guy comes after you, people will notice you and they can help you.’_

Someone was grabbing her. Dad and Poppins weren’t there. And the knife Poppins always used to peel his morning apple was still lying on the table, well within reach and glinting in the morning sunlight.

So Emmie did whatever it took to get Andi to let her go. And then ran like hell.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one ever died from being pricked with a fruit knife and Kiwi gets to meet Jenkins!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I just finished the outline for this (right on time, four chapters in) and brace yourselves, because this is going to be _long_. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing, I'll leave that up to you, but anyway. You're not rid of Kiwi yet!

‘You stabbed her?’ Ezekiel asked incredulously and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or swear after Kiwi told her story.

‘I cut her,’ Kiwi said, voice threatening to break again, so Ezekiel reached out, pulled her out of her chair and into his lap. Nestled safe and warm against him with her head tucked under his chin, Kiwi continued: ‘And then there was all this blood and she was screaming and then Poppins came back and he was shouting and he looked _so angry_ and I just… I just…’

Fresh tears were welling up and she buried her face into Ezekiel’s shoulder as she started crying again. Ezekiel let her for a moment, stroking her back and holding her tight as he mentally calculated the damage a panicked ten-year-old could do with an apple knife against a half-snake, half-human creature.

‘Kiwi, can you listen to me?’ he asked after the bout of sobbing had run its course. Kiwi peeled her face free from his shirt to peer up at him through red-rimmed eyes and nodded.

‘First of all,’ Ezekiel said, grabbing a napkin and handing it to her so she could dry her face, ‘I don’t think you killed Andi. If she was still screaming, you probably didn’t cut her that bad. And if Poppins was there, he’d have known what to do.’

Kiwi paused scrubbing her face with the napkin for a moment to glance at Ezekiel. ‘You don’t think she’s dead?’ she whispered, eyes wide with disbelief.

‘No,’ Ezekiel said, not telling her that in this case, that might not be something to be relieved about. ‘But you did really well, Kiwi. Really, really well.’

Kiwi brightened considerably as he said it, and Ezekiel couldn’t help but smile as he cupped the back of her head and pressed a fierce kiss into the soft curls. ‘I’m proud of you, kid,’ he murmured as he held her there for a moment, eyes closed and thanking every god he did not believe in that she was okay. ‘Really friggin’ proud of you.’

A moment passed in which neither of them did more than breathe in and out. Then Kiwi drew back and looked at Ezekiel, a frown on her face. ‘Dad,’ she asked, ‘how did you know Andi would have a tattoo?’

Ezekiel made a face because honestly, he should have seen that coming. With a small sigh, he gently shoved Kiwi off his lap and back into her chair before he said: ‘You know, that is a long story and I think we both had enough of those for the day. But,’ he added, as he saw Kiwi biting her lip and gearing up for a protest, ‘I promise I will tell you tomorrow. Or after I’ve had some sleep, whichever comes first. In the meantime.’

He pulled out his phone and punched in a number. ‘In the meantime, I’m going to call Poppins and tell him you’re safe with me, so he won’t panic and call his… his friends. Then, I’m going home and you are going to come with me.’

He didn’t stop to think what Jake and Cassandra would think of that idea. After all, they probably had their suspicions by now, and even if they didn’t. If members of the Serpent Brotherhood had started targeting his kid, he was not going to let her out of his sight until he knew exactly what was going on.

Judging by the way Kiwi squeaked with delighted surprise before she launched herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck and holding on so tight he nearly choked, she had absolutely no problem with this.

\---

The phone call with Byron, as Poppins was really called (although it sometimes took Ezekiel embarrassingly long to remember that), was brief but sufficient.

‘The kid’s safe. She’s with me,’ Ezekiel said without any preamble as Byron picked up the phone. ‘She’s gonna stay with me for a while, and tomorrow, I’m coming over and you and I are going to have a nice little chat about you letting unvetted individuals near my daughter.’

‘Understood,’ was the gruff reply before Ezekiel hung up. Then he saw Kiwi looking at him and he fired off a text: _Andi still alive?_

_Like anyone ever died from being pricked with a fruit knife_ , came the response.

When he showed the message to Kiwi, she dissolved into a fit of relieved giggles. After all the crying, it sounded like absolute music to Ezekiel’s ears.

\---

‘Now,’ Ezekiel said as they walked out of the coffee shop, ‘do you remember I told you about the magic door?’

Kiwi gasped. ‘We’re gonna go through the _magic door?’_

‘How did you think I got here that fast?’ Ezekiel said, grinning at the joy that was shining on Kiwi’s face. ‘It’s right in that alleyway and it’s gonna take us straight to the Library. But,’ he said in a stern voice as Kiwi tugged on his hand, trying to break into a run, ‘it’s already pretty late over there so once we get to the Library, we’re gonna get into the car and I’m driving us straight home. So you won’t get to meet the cowboy or the princess just yet.’ _Because I might have to explain a couple of things to them first_ , was a thing he did not say.

That did not deter Kiwi in the slightest. Instead, she kept bouncing along next to him until they reached the alleyway and Ezekiel opened a door that usually led to the kitchen of a restaurant. A bow and a flourish and he grinned at the sight of his kid, her eyes and mouth wide open with wonder at the sight in front of her. ‘After you,’ he said.

Kiwi did not have to be told twice. She stepped back, broke into a run and burst through the Back Door at full speed, skidding to a halt in the center of the Annex. Ezekiel stumbled in after her and immediately felt a fond grin spreading across his face. Because for all her earlier excitement, Kiwi stood now rooted to the spot, awestruck by the scene around her. Eyes wide as saucers and mouth still hanging open in a perfect O, she reminded Ezekiel of the fist time he came into the Library himself, of the moment he found out that all his coolest dreams were coming true.

Then Kiwi turned around to face him and the awe on her face made place for the widest grin Ezekiel had ever seen. ‘ _Awesome,’_ she said, and with that, she was off to explore the place in the way of ten-year-olds everywhere: by touching everything she could lay her tiny hands on while providing a running commentary on the things she saw. ’There’s so many _books_ here, dad, I didn’t know there would be so many _books_ and look at this painting, there’s knights on this painting dad is this a painting of the knight that’s your friend too and how does the magic door work dad can you tell me and oh my god what does this do?’

That last question was aimed at the magic globe Jenkins always used to visualize the leylines, but before Kiwi could try her hand at throwing the thing in the air, Ezekiel stopped her. ‘Shhhh,’ he said, swallowing his laughter, ‘I’ll show you everything tomorrow, but now we’ve gotta get out of here before…’

‘ _Mr. Jones_ , what on God’s green earth is going on at this time of night?’ came a stern voice from the landing above.

‘… we wake up Jenkins,’ Ezekiel finished weakly. ‘Hi Jenkins.’

‘Good evening to you as well, Mr. Jones,’ Jenkins said as he walked down the stairs, frowning at Kiwi who was still standing near the globe and who was wavering between exhilaration at finally seeing the knight out of Ezekiel’s stories and a desire to hide behind her dad because the knight was a lot taller and looked a lot sterner than she expected. ‘My question still stands.’

Ezekiel swallowed; time to bite the first bullet. ‘Jenkins, this is Emmie,’ Ezekiel said, trying his hardest to sound assured and confident and not as nervous as he actually felt. ‘Emmie, this is Jenkins.’

 To his credit, Jenkins did not faze. ‘Very nice to meet you, Miss Emmie,’ he said, offering her an outstretched hand and even a smile when she took it with barely suppressed squeak. ‘You look… awfully familiar.’

‘Yeah, they say that,’ Ezekiel said with a relieved grin, quietly deciding to bring Jenkins some of that obscure tea brand he liked as a little reward for not making a scene. Or asking invasive questions. ‘Kiwi, could you go wait for me at the door?’ he asked. ‘I need to talk to Jenkins for a moment, but then I’ll be right with you and we’ll go home, okay?’

_Kiwi?_ Jenkins mouthed, making a face as Kiwi disappeared down the hallway. Ezekiel shrugged. ‘Her mom’s from New Zealand,’ he said, ignoring the way Jenkins rolled his eyes.

‘I presume Miss Emmie is some kind of family relation?’ Jenkins asked, looking from the hallway back to Ezekiel with a curiously soft look in his eyes.

‘Daughter, actually,’ Ezekiel replied, watching Jenkin’s eyebrows rise. ‘Had a run-in with a member of the Serpent Brotherhood, which is why she’s staying with me for the time being.’

Now Jenkins’ eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair. ‘Mr. Jones, the Serpent Brotherhood has not been active since my… since DuLaque was defeated.’ The slight pause did not escape Ezekiel’s notice, and neither did the brief flicker of pain in Jenkins’ eyes. ‘And even if they had not gone to ground,’ Jenkins continued, ‘targeting children is not their style. Are you certain that this is what happened?’

‘If it looks like a snake and it hisses like a snake, then it’s gotta be a snake, isn’t it?’ Ezekiel said a little testily, not liking the way his daughter’s experience was called into question.

‘Well, yes,’ Jenkins conceded with a head tilt and a hum. ‘But there are more serpent creatures around than just those in the Brotherhood. Did this creature have a name, by any chance?’

Ezekiel shrugged. ‘Andi something,’ he said. ‘Look, Kiwi can tell you the whole story tomorrow. All I know is that the thing frightened the living daylights out of her, so I’m keeping her a bit closer to home for now.’

That last bit sounded a little more defensive than Ezekiel had meant it to come out, but Jenkins merely nodded. ‘You are quite right, Mr. Jones. Now, might I suggest you go home and get some sleep, so that I can go back and to the same?’

‘Of course,’ Ezekiel said, trying not to sag with longing at the prospect of _bed._

He turned around and started for the hallway, but before he reached the door, Jenkins cleared his throat behind him. ‘Mr. Jones?’

Ezekiel turned around again to see that Jenkins was regarding him with a warm, fond look that Ezekiel had only seen on a very few occasions. It was a very far cry from the usual aloof condescension the Librarians all knew and loved and it would have given Ezekiel the willies if he thought it had just been meant for him. ‘I don’t know for how long you are planning for Miss Emmie to stay here,’ Jenkins said, ‘but I would not object to having a pair of helping hands around to keep this place organized. If you understand me.’

Ezekiel did not see that one coming. It took a long second for Jenkins’ words to sink in, but then Ezekiel’s vision suddenly went a little blurry and he had to swallow a couple of times before he managed to nod and say: ‘I understand. I’ll… I’ll ask her. If she wants to.’

‘Please do,’ Jenkins said with a solemn nod before he disappeared up the stairs again, leaving Ezekiel standing alone in the darkened Annex. Then he heard Kiwi’s voice marveling at the fact that _wow there are like a million doors in this hallway this is so cool dad where does this one go_ and he snapped back to life before his kid managed to transport herself to another dimension.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kiwi meets the rest of the gang!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, heads up: I'm back to work so updates will slow down from this point. I'll aim for updates on Fridays, at least, but I'm not making any promises. Good news: the next two chapters are all but written and they are a lot longer than the previous ones (as is this one). Enjoy!

The drive from the Annex to the civilized world that was Portland, was quiet. The terror and subsequent excitement of the past hours were finally wearing down on Kiwi, who was sitting slumped in the passenger seat and staring out of the window without really seeing anything. Ezekiel was silent as well. After everything that just happened, a moment of quiet was the least he could get his kid.

The fact that he was exhausted might also have been a factor. Even for a Librarian, this had been one hell of a day. It might have actually been safer to use the Back Door again to get home, he mused as streetlights started to punctuate the darkness, a sure sign that they had made it to the outskirts of Portland. The lights were harsh on his eyes and he blinked to keep them from scrunching shut, thanking the stars that there was hardly any traffic at this godforsaken hour. God, it was a small miracle he hadn’t wrapped the both of them around a tree or landed them in a ditch by the side of the road.

He only realized just _how_ tired he was when he parked the car, looked outside and promptly slumped against the steering wheel with a sound that was both muffled groan and helpless laughter.

‘Dad?’ Kiwi asked, voice thin and unsure. ‘Is everything okay?’

Ezekiel was not so sure. Because in his fogged state of mind, apparently some kind of auto-pilot had taken over and instead of driving to one of his own hideouts so he and Kiwi could have some time together, and he could spend some time working out a way to tell Jake and Cassandra that his kid that they knew nothing about was now here and was going to _stay_ here for a while… instead of that, he was standing parked right underneath Jake’s apartment, which had become the de facto home for the three of them.

_I’m gonna take you home,_ he had told Kiwi. This was _not_ what he had meant.

Still, he was in absolutely no state to start the car up and hit the road again, because then they might very well end up against a streetlight somewhere. And he knew Jake wouldn’t mind (probably. Hopefully). However much they might yell at him for keeping his kid a secret, and whatever fallout might be coming, he trusted Jake and Cassandra enough by now to know that they wouldn’t take it out on Kiwi. That was probably a pretty significant realization too, if he hadn’t been too tired to properly appreciate it.

So he sat up, looked at Kiwi, who was biting her lip and looking from the building outside back to him with a suspicious frown on her face.

‘Everything’s okay,’ Ezekiel said with a weary smile. ‘It’s just that we’re at the cowboy’s apartment instead of my own, but that’s okay. You wanna go inside?’

Kiwi’s face lit up. ‘Is the princess gonna be there too?’

\---

The princess was indeed there too, but, like the cowboy, she was fast asleep. So Ezekiel gave Kiwi the briefest of brief apartment tours before he installed her on the couch, told her to take a nap (even though it was still early for her, after everything she was ready to drop) and that, if she woke up, she could make herself at home as long as she kept it quiet. Then he went into the bedroom, stripped down to his boxers, crawled into bed, plastered himself against Cassandra’s back and was asleep before he heard Jake’s sleepy growl demanding where the hell he had been.

\---

Early sunlight filtered through the drapes and into Jake’s eyes as he slowly drifted from sleeping to waking. Judging by the way Cassandra was shifting next to him before curling closer into his chest, she was on the edge of waking as well. Letting out a sleepy hum, he wrapped a protective arm around her, enjoying the feeling of warmth and safety for a moment before he got himself ready to face the world outside of their bed.

Then his hand found another arm draped over Cassandra’s side and he frowned as his brain finally started to boot up. ‘Hey,’ he murmured, dropping a kiss to her head. ‘You know when Jones got in?’

Cassandra hummed before she pressed a kiss to his shoulder. ‘Dunno,’ she muttered. ‘Must’ve been late.’

It had already been _late_ when the two of them got home, ready to drop after a day of fighting magical skeletons. God knows what the hell Jones had been up to, let alone how he managed to do anything when he had been just as exhausted as them.

Although now that more and more of Jake’s brain cells were coming back online and last night started to come back in more detail, he was starting to piece a couple of things together.

‘He got a phone call,’ Cassandra said, eyes still closed and still sounding half asleep. ‘Bad phone call.’

Yeah, Jake remembered that. In their four years of working together, he had never seen Ezekiel look as shocked and outright panicked as last night, from the moment his phone buzzed until the moment he practically kicked them out of the Annex. Something bad had obviously gone down last night but now Ezekiel was here with them again, apparently unharmed and sound asleep, so whatever it was, Jake decided that it could wait until all three of them were fully awake.

_And had had something to eat_ , his stomach added.

Fair enough, Jake decided. ‘You want eggs for breakfast, Cassie?’ he asked, letting his fingers slide down over her spine in a way that made her hum against his shoulder again.

‘No eggs,’ she muttered back. ‘Just oatmeal. And I’ll make it, because you never get it right.’

‘It just isn’t my kinda breakfast, is all,’ Jake said with a apologetic grin before he stepped out of bed, made his way through the apartment into the kitchen and immediately wished he was wearing more than just his ratty old pajama pants.

‘Do you mind,’ Cassandra whispered as she bumped into him from behind because he stood rooted to the spot in the doorway. Then she looked around him to see why Jake had suddenly decided to imitate a statue. ‘Oh.’

There was a girl sitting at the kitchen table. She was brown-skinned, with dark eyes and a mass of sandy brown curls that looked more like a bird’s nest at the moment, skinny as a reed and she looked about ten years old. She was also halfway through the box of leftover brownies that Ezekiel had made the day before, one of Cassandra’s XXL mugs filled with orange juice standing next to the plate to wash it all down. She looked wary when she saw them, but the way her wariness was immediately replaced with a look that radiated angelic innocence, was so familiar that Jake could not help but laugh.

‘Oh god,’ Cassandra said next to him with a breathless laugh as well, ‘is that…’

‘Jones’ kid?’ Jake finished, not knowing whether to laugh or groan as the kid nodded with an all too familiar shit-eating grin. ‘Apparently, yes. Uhm. Hi.’

‘Hi,’ the girl said. ‘Are you the cowboy?’

‘ _Definitely_ Jones’ kid,’ Jake groaned as Cassandra grabbed a hold of his shoulder to keep herself upright as she doubled over with laughter.

\---

Ezekiel woke about an hour later to the sounds of uproarious laughter coming from the living room. And while he knew all those three laughs separately, it took him a couple of confused moments to fit them together because they should not _be_ together. At least one of them should be in London, safe and sound although perhaps a little bored…

In that moment, last night came back to him in full force and he bolted upright, suddenly fully awake.

_Kiwi. Fuck._

It looked like Jake and Cassandra had met Kiwi. Although by the sound of it, that meeting had gone about as well as Ezekiel had dared to hope for. Which is why Ezekiel slipped out of bed, took the time to take a long hot shower to wash away the last of his fatigue and got himself properly dressed before he set foot out of the bedroom.

He was greeted with a sight that was both cause for relief and concern: Cassandra and Kiwi were sitting on the couch, heads bent together as Cassandra was telling a tall tale which seemed to prominently feature Ezekiel and Jake falling flat on their faces, while Kiwi was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her face. Jake had just entered the room from the kitchen on the other side, a wide grin on his face as well and carrying a tray with a glass of lemonade and a plate of pancakes stacked about two feet high.

Something in Ezekiel clenched as he saw all this, and he had to take a careful breath in before he said: ‘Hey guys.’ Then his eyes widened at the sight of the laden tray. ‘Seriously, Stone? She’s got you making pancakes already? Mate, that’s pathetic.’

‘Hey, she’s skinny as a twig, man,’ Jake growled as he handed a delighted Kiwi a full plate and a bottle of maple syrup, which Ezekiel, knowing Kiwi’s occasional lack of hand-eye coordination, regarded warily. ‘You know you gotta feed ‘em, right?’

Before Ezekiel could formulate a reply to this, Jake had put the tray down and Ezekiel found himself wrapped up in a good morning cowboy bear hug. ‘You might have told us, you know,’ Jake murmured, so low that only Ezekiel could hear.

Ezekiel nodded, scrunching his eyes shut against Jake’s shoulder for a moment as the clenching inside got even tighter. ‘I know,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry.’

One firm rub across his back told him that it was okay, even as Jake kissed him softly and said, in that same low voice: ‘We’ll talk later.’

With that, Ezekiel was released but before he could find his balance again, he had two arms full of Cassandra, hugging him so tight he could barely breathe. Ezekiel didn’t mind: he just pressed a kiss to Cassandra’s temple and murmured a good morning, all while wondering what the hell he had done to deserve these people. Then Cassandra drew back, pressed a gentle kiss to his lips as well and said, still so softly that Kiwi wouldn’t hear: ‘I should be mad at you, but she is _adorable._ ’

‘I know,’ Ezekiel whispered back, completely agreeing with her on both counts. He looked up, firmly ignoring the relief roaring in his ears, to see Kiwi watching him from the couch with a frown, while absentmindedly drizzling syrup over a stack of pancakes. ‘Hey Kiwi. You okay?’ he asked.

Kiwi nodded, took a huge bite of pancake and said, without bothering to swallow first: ‘I’m fine. I thought it would be weird when you kissed them, but it’s okay.’

Ezekiel grinned, trying not to laugh at Jake’s sudden bashful look and Cassandra’s giggle. ‘Well,’ he said, making his way over to the couch to snatch himself a plate and some pancakes as well, ‘that’s probably because they’re not snake people.’

‘Snake people?’ Jake asked, mildly alarmed, but before Ezekiel could start to explain, Cassandra looked at the clock and groaned. ‘Crap, guys. Baird is going to kill us if we don’t get to the Annex right now.’

‘Is Baird the ninja?’ Kiwi asked, bouncing up and down with excitement, putting the maple syrup bottle at immediate risk of falling over if Ezekiel hadn’t caught it while Cassandra went down in a fit of giggles and Jake rolled his eyes, groaning something about _oh dear lord now there’s two of them._

That last comment almost did Ezekiel in as well, but he managed to keep himself together. ‘Baird’s the ninja,’ he said after a valiant effort not to choke on his pancake. ‘You wanna go through the magic door again and meet her?’

\---

The ninja was already waiting for them when they burst through the Door, looking supremely unimpressed even though, since they skipped their normal commute, they were not actually all that late. ‘Guys, I thought we agreed,’ she said, blue eyes like steel fixed on her three charges as they came barging in. ‘No using the Back Door to get to work. It’s cheating.’

Her charges didn’t listen, though, which was not all that unusual in itself. What was a bit unusual was that after Ezekiel had come in, he turned around to call ‘come on’, waving with his hand like he was beckoning someone on the other side to come in as well. Which was odd, because last time Baird checked, there had still been three of them. One cowboy art historian, one redhead mathemagician and one Ezekiel, all accounted for.

Then Kiwi came running through the Door at full speed, only stopping because she collided with Jake’s desk at the other side of the Annex with a loud _oomph_. Undeterred, she turned around to face Ezekiel with a grin and proclaimed: ‘Still _awesome!’_

‘I know,’ Ezekiel replied, grinning at her as well before he turned to Eve. ‘Good morning Colonel Baird, how are you doing this fine Wednesday?’

‘I’m fine, as long as you don’t _Colonel Baird_ me,’ Eve said, keeping her voice very studiously level. ‘Now, why don’t you tell me why the three of you have brought a kid along? At least, _please_ tell me that’s a kid and not someone who’s magically got de-aged or something.’

This was said with a semi-suspicious look at Kiwi, who was once again drawing towards the magic globe before Jake stopped her. ‘That doesn’t work,’ he told her in a loud whisper, earning him a smack on the arm from Cassandra.

‘Kiwi, can you come here a second?’ Ezekiel said, ignoring the way Eve mouthed _Kiwi?_ Kiwi turned around and, seeing Eve, lost no time in running over to Ezekiel. ‘Hi,’ she said, out of breath with awe at the tall ninja goddess standing before her in the flesh, ‘are you the ninjacolonelevebaird?’

‘Uhm,’ Eve replied eloquently.

 ‘Yeah, this is Eve Baird,’ Ezekiel laughed. ‘But you might want to call her Eve, it’s shorter. Eve, this is Emmie. Uhm. Emmie Jones.’

‘Uhm,’ Eve repeated, looking from one nervously smiling face to the other before visibly shaking herself. ‘Right. Of course. Hi Emmie.’

‘Hi,’ Kiwi breathed again as she shook Eve’s outstretched hand, letting out the same squeak she had done last night when she met Jenkins. Ezekiel looked on, wavering between relief at how smooth this all seemed to be going and worry about the inevitable fallout that would be coming once Kiwi was out of earshot. Because he could _see_ the question marks floating over everybody’s heads and he had no doubt that once Jake, Cassandra and Eve had found an excuse to talk to him alone, he would be in for a pretty lengthy explanation session.

Of course, that was the moment Jenkins materialized from the kitchen, his morning tea in one hand and a bucket that reeked of fish in the other. ‘Ah, Miss Emmie, how splendid to see you again. Mr. Jones, I was just about to feed Nessie Jr. and I thought Miss Emmie might be of some assistance, if you wouldn’t mind?’

Kiwi’s eyes grew so wide they almost popped right out of her head, so who was Ezekiel to say no? ‘You wanna go with Jenkins?’ he asked Kiwi, who nodded so furiously her entire face became a blur. ‘Okay, off you go then,’ Ezekiel said with a gentle shove. ‘Try not to fall into the lake, but if you do, Nessie will help you out. And in the meantime you can tell Jenkins about Andi the snake lady, okay?’

Kiwi nodded again before running over to Jenkins with another excited squeak. A minute later, the Annex was devoid of caretaker and child, and much as Ezekiel had feared and expected, Jake, Cassandra and Eve rounded on him almost immediately.

‘That’s the second time this morning you mentioned snake people,’ Jake said with a glare. ‘Why the hell are you going on about snake people?’

‘Really?’ Cassandra asked incredulously. ‘You want to talk about the _snake people_ of all things?’

‘Cassandra’s right,’ Eve said. ‘Forget about the snake people for a moment.’

‘Sorry, did you just say _forget about the snake people?’_ Jake asked, glare and angry tone intensifying.

‘For now, yes,’ Eve said. ‘Jones, start at the beginning. How did you get a kid, although you can spare us the graphic details _please_ and why have we never heard about her until today? _Then_ we’ll get to the snake people.’

Ezekiel breathed in. And slowly out. And back in again. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Gather round and make yourselves comfortable, ‘cause this might take a while.’


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory time! Also, the tags have been updated and this chapter contains mentions of abuse. Just so you know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I found out that last Wednesday was John Kim’s birthday. And that he turned 25. Which, happy birthday of course, but that does make the timeline of this fic a bit iffy. So let’s all just pretend Ezekiel is my own age which is… well. Close to 30 and let’s leave it at that, shall we?
> 
> Also, I retconned chapter 2 a little to make it a bit more charitable towards Kiwi's mum. Because that's what happens if you make stuff up as you go along, I guess...

Ezekiel Jones, master thief, was _loving_ his life right now. He was twenty-two years old and already one of the best thieves on the planet, the bane of law enforcement agencies and rich bastards everywhere and it was _amazing._ Just last week, he had pulled off another heist, which had left him with enough cash on hand to both fund the renovation of a high school in one of the poorer areas of Detroit and to acquire another safe house, this time in Amsterdam. A city that was heavily overrated as far as tourism attractions went, but criminally _underrated_ for its convenient location. Smack dab in the middle of Europe, with a major airport and one of the largest seaports in the world within spitting distance. Pot brownies were nice and all, but being able to leave the country within the hour if he needed to? Priceless.

Plus, he had kind of gotten addicted to those fried little meatball things they had here. Honestly, whoever had come up with those was a genius, Ezekiel decided as he leaned back into his chair in front of a café by the side of one of the canals, a bowl of fried meatballs and a beer on the rickety table in front of him. Basking in the warm summer sunlight, there was a long moment in which he did nothing but watch the boats full of pathetically excited tourists go by, some of them already dead drunk at five in the afternoon. If this is what a normal visit to Amsterdam was like, Ezekiel thought, popping another meatball in his mouth, he was glad his life was anything but normal. Normal was boring, he very much preferred being awesome instead.

Then his phone buzzed and he didn’t recognize the number. That was odd.

‘Jones,’ he said after swallowing the last bit of meatball. ‘How’d you get this number?’

‘You uhm… you gave it to me?’ a female voice he also didn’t recognize said. ‘About five years ago. I mean, you probably don’t remember, but you did.’ The voice sounded scared and unsure, so Ezekiel sat up and decided to go for the friendly approach.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, you probably wouldn’t have this number if I didn’t give it to you, and I never give my number without good reason. So why don’t you refresh my memory and tell me who you are?’

‘My name’s Madeline,’ the voice said. It had a New Zealand accent and Ezekiel frowned. _Madeline, Madeline…_ he couldn’t for the life of him remember when he met a Madeline from New Zealand, let alone give her his number. ‘You uhm… you used to call me Wallaby?’

Now a very faint lightbulb started to flicker. ‘Wallaby…’ Ezekiel said, very slowly. ‘Auckland. That night club with the purple cat for a sign. Drunk dude wouldn’t leave you alone so I nicked his wallet for you and walked you home.’

‘And didn’t leave for a month,’ Madeline said with a relieved little laugh. ‘You do remember.’

Ezekiel did indeed remember. That had not been a good time; he had been seventeen, fresh out of MI6 for the first time (though not the last, unfortunately), and desperate to get back onto his own two feet. Madeline had been a nice distraction, a bit of warmth in a cold world and, most importantly, a free roof over his head. Staying with her had been a much needed reprieve, but nothing more than that. He had left after he’d got wind of an art auction that was taking place in Seoul, one that provided a major opportunity to get back into the game, and he had never looked back.

So why in the world was she calling him now?

‘I do remember,’ he said, still at half-speed. ‘But why are you calling me?’

‘Because I need to talk to you,’ Madeline said, voice back to wavering insecurity. ‘Uhm. Not over the phone. And as soon as possible?’

Well, that answered that question. Not. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m still in Auckland. You?’

Great. He was looking at a 24 hour flight, _at minimum,_ because someone he’d met five years ago had suddenly decided to crawl out of his past and back into his present. ‘I’m in Amsterdam,’ he said, groaning inwardly as he already mentally said goodbye to the meatballs. ‘Are you sure you can’t tell me over the phone?’

‘Please,’ Madeline said, and now her voice was cracking. She sounded like she was about to burst into tears, and call Ezekiel a sap but he did _not_ like to hear a girl cry. ‘It’s really important, I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.’

Of course she wouldn’t have called if it hadn’t been important, Ezekiel thought. She wouldn’t have called him out of the blue for a chat about the weather; anything where you need to call someone you haven’t spoken to in five years has got to be pretty damn important.

‘Alright,’ he said, looking sadly at the last lonely fried meatball in the bowl. ‘I’ll find a flight and text you when I know I’ll be there.’

It was a good thing he already had a safe house in Auckland as well. Stealing a five star hotel room was always such a hassle.

\---

Even though he was used to flying all over the world by now, Ezekiel still couldn’t sleep on an airplane. The fact that there were too many people and not enough exits kept him on edge for the entire flight, but that was okay: he used the time in the air to find out what Madeline had been up to in the past five years.

He didn’t really like what he found: a string of domestic violence reports, ER visits for bruised and broken bones caused by ‘running into a door’  and ‘tripping over the cat’ and ‘falling down the stairs’ and one memorable case of near-bankruptcy because someone had run off with all her valuables. According to the police, it had been an inside job. Ezekiel frowned as he dug deeper and deeper. It seemed Madeline really didn’t know how to pick ‘em, which was not really how he remembered her. But then again, he really didn’t remember much about her, so maybe that was not so surprising.

Then, being Ezekiel Jones, he dug a little deeper than strictly necessary. And found a birth certificate for an Emmeline Joanna Walker, born about five years ago.

Or, to put it another way, about five years minus nine months ago.

He had seen pictures of the kid on Facebook, but he hadn’t made the connection immediately. It might have been sleep deprivation, the altitude scrambling his brain or just plain denial, but he had smiled, thought the kid was cute and clicked through without a second thought.

He looked at the date on the birth certificate again. Suddenly, he had a pretty good inkling why Madeline had called him.

\---

So when Madeline handed him a picture of a girl with bushy brown hair and a gap-toothed grin, he was not surprised. They were sitting in a coffee shop in Auckland, Ezekiel still a bit travel dazed and fighting to stay alert, because if he didn’t watch himself, he might ask Madeline if she was doing okay when she was obviously not. With dark bags under her eyes that no amount of concealer could conceal, a bare flicker of a smile when she saw him and slow movements as she sat herself down and reached for her cappuccino, as if every muscle movement was one too many, she looked _exhausted._ Not just physically exhausted, but like someone had drained her of all mental energy as well. Given what Ezekiel had dug up, he could make a pretty educated guess as to who that person was, and it was not the person in the picture he was holding.

‘Emmeline,’ Ezekiel said softly as he stared at the picture. ‘I saw the pictures on your Facebook. She’s cute.’

‘You know she’s yours,’ Madeline said just as softly. Ezekiel nodded. Even after a couple of hours to get used to the idea, he still didn’t quite know what to say. Or how to feel about this. After all, what do you say and how do you feel when you find out you accidentally made a kid five years ago and you’re only now hearing about her for the first time?

There was one question he could ask, though. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

It was a gentle, honest question, not an accusation. But Madeline still flinched a little, dull brown eyes suddenly wary, and Ezekiel felt cold anger starting to rise up inside him, aimed at whoever it was who had made Madeline look that way.

‘I thought… you never told me what you did or… and I mean you were so _young_ and travelling all over the world and I thought… you might not… anyway. Uhm.’

It was by no means a coherent answer, but Ezekiel still understood. He had no idea what he would have done if she had called him five years ago, but he doubted it would have been pretty. He very much doubted he would have come running back to Auckland. Instead, probably would have run very fast in the opposite direction. A mentally stable father figure, he would not have been.

Not that he thought he was one now, but hey.

‘Then why tell me now?’ he asked, eyes still glued to the picture on the table. The kid _was_ cute. And for all that she looked like her mother in skin color and hair, there was still something so familiar about her that Ezekiel could not help but feel his stomach flip a little.

Madeline nervously raked a hand through short hair that would have been brown if it hadn’t currently been dyed deep purple. Then she scrunched her eyes shut and took a deep breath, swallowing a couple of times before she said: ‘Could you… I mean, would you be willing to… shit.’

Her voice cracked on the last word, which was followed by a tear that managed to escape and make its way to freedom down her cheek. Mentally steeling herself, she took another huge breath before she opened her eyes and looked at Ezekiel, who had a sudden sinking feeling where this conversation was going.

‘I need you to take her in,’ Madeline said in the voice of someone who is ripping off a very painful band aid all at once. ‘Because I’m going to a women’s shelter and even though they do take kids as well, it’s not… it’s not a great environment for her and I know you’re still all over the world and everything and I know it’s been five years and we were only together for a month but you seemed like a really caring guy back then and even now, I mean you flew here all the way from Amsterdam while I hadn’t even told you yet and please, there’s no one else that would have her and she’ll… she’ll be a lot safer with you than with me. And… and as soon as I get back on my feet again, I’ll come by and get her out of your hair, I promise. Just, please, do you think you could… you could…’

The rest of the sentence faltered as Madeline finally ran out of breath. And even though Ezekiel had kind of seen this coming, that did not mean he didn’t sit there in stunned silence for a good long minute, weighing his words and thinking of a way to politely and compassionately say _what the fuck._

Still. He might not have any experience with kids whatsoever. He might have no clue what they liked, wanted, needed, and what you had to do to keep them happy. Or even alive. But there was no way he was going to leave a kid in a situation that was crappy at best, and outright dangerous at worst. He had seen his share of shelters, women’s and otherwise, and Madeline was right. They were absolutely _not_ the place for a kid to be.

He looked at the picture again. Then back to Madeline. ‘Where is she now?’

\---

The kid was currently watching TV at Madeline’s neighbor’s house. When Madeline told her that this was Ezekiel and that Emmeline was going to have to stay with him for a little while, the kid said ‘oh. Okay’, shot Ezekiel a vaguely interested look and then went back to watching SpongeBob flip crabby patties.

So Ezekiel guessed that was that, then.

‘Will she be safe here?’ he asked quietly when they were standing in the neighbor’s kitchen, pushing a glass of water into the hands of a shaking Madeline and gently guiding her to sit down.

Madeline nodded. Took a gulp of water, swallowed, and said: ‘Yeah. Yeah, I… I think so. Mark… Mark hasn’t hurt her yet and he won’t be home until tomorrow and even then, I... I don’t think he’ll go looking for her. But, uhm.’

Mark. So the bastard’s name was Mark. Ezekiel made a mental note of this and filed this neatly away under ‘People that need to be caused a lot of pain’.

‘But you’d feel better if I took her away right now,’ he said softly, right before Madeline finally burst into tears.

\---

Cassandra was close to tears as well. Her eyes were wet and she had a death grip on Jake’s arm. Jake on the other hand looked like a very grim statue, a quiet storm raging in his eyes as he looked at Ezekiel. Only Eve looked more or less impassive, but Ezekiel could tell she was just biding her time, delaying her response until the story was done.

‘So, yeah. That’s how I got a kid,’ Ezekiel said, faltering under Jake’s gaze and the fact that Cassandra was now not-so-surreptitiously wiping her eyes. ‘I mean, I wasn’t gonna leave her there now, was I?’

‘So you took her in,’ Eve said. ‘And then what?’

\---

 The first few weeks were rough. Ezekiel would have preferred some time to make arrangements (like getting a bed for the kid, for instance. His safe house couch was _not_ comfortable) and the kid did not make things better by refusing to be upset about the way things were going.

Not that Ezekiel would have known what to do with an upset kid, but still. She seemed to take the loss of her mother and home in stride, just like the fact that she was now apparently and indefinitely living with a complete stranger. Her way of dealing with things seemed to be adopting an air of supreme indifference, which for a five-year-old was just _wrong._

She also already seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to see her mom again anytime soon, even though Madeline had told her she’d come by to pick her up as soon as she could. Ezekiel shared the kid’s suspicion, but no, that did not mean she could get a puppy.

Instead of a puppy, though, he *ahum* acquired her a nice apartment in London, which was a lot more convenient than fucking Auckland, a good school and a nanny-cum-bodyguard to take care of her when he was away. In the meantime, he continued gallivanting all over the world, but now he made sure to drop by his kid (and wasn’t it weird how quickly she became _his kid_ ) every couple of weeks to see how she was doing.

It didn’t take him long to get used to this new rhythm. And it didn’t take him long _at all_ to start looking forward to his next Kiwi visit, because once she got to know him? Once she got to know him, and even better, to  _trust_ him, she was _amazing._ Her earlier indifference slowly disappeared, only to make place for a combination of unbridled enthusiasm about _everything_  anda resilience and curiousity to match Ezekiel's own. Andshe was so, so _clever_  too _,_ he hadn’t known kids could be that _clever._ She asked questions he would never have thought of and then provided answers that were simultaneously utter nonsense and made a weird kind of _sense_. Walking through the city with her was an experience: she saw every bird, commented on every passing dog, wanted to touch every weird looking tree, pointed at every airplane going by overhead, all while asking a bazillion questions about the buildings and the people on the street and Ezekiel loved every minute of it.

\---

‘Jones,’ Eve said, rolling her eyes and obviously trying to contain her laughter, ‘enough with the adoration already. If she’s so amazing, why have we never heard of her?’

\---

There were two main reasons Ezekiel never told his fellow Librarians about his daughter.

When Ezekiel became a Librarian, he lost no time in telling Kiwi everything (in the PG-rated version, of course). But he didn’t tell his brand new colleagues, for the simple reason that he had absolutely no reason to trust them yet with that information. His suspicions got confirmed when Cassandra sold them all out, so Ezekiel decided he might have to work with these people, but that didn’t mean they would get to hear anything about his personal life.

This was the first reason. And even though it eroded over time, through mission after mission where the others proved themselves over and over again and through the fact that he started falling fast and hard for Jake and Cassandra (who, color him delighted but _baffled_ , fell for him just as hard). Even though there was all of that, he still hesitated to tell them.

At first he made himself believe that there never was a right moment. And that might have been true, but on the other, hand, he also knew that the right moment was the one you made yourself. There hadn’t been a _right moment_ for Jake to tell them about how much of a scumbag Isaac Stone had really been, or for Cassandra to tell them about the all- consuming fear that one day, her tumor might grow back. And yet they had had those conversations, painful as they had been. So that excuse didn’t really fly.

The other reason though? That only got stronger with every mission.

Because yeah, meeting magical creatures and fighting monsters and saving the world might sound _awesome._ Most of the time, it _was_ awesome. But with every mission where Ezekiel saw people ending up hurt by magic, or sometimes even end up _dead_ because of magic, he knew that, awesome as it could be, it was also bloody dangerous. And that was _before_ the government started taking an interest.

Ezekiel did not want his kid anywhere _near_ a place the government took an interest in. So he would tell Kiwi the stories, show her the pictures and even bring her back a book or two (Ray didn’t seem to mind), but she would have to be a _lot_ older before he let her step foot into the Library.

That was why he didn’t tell Jake or Cassandra. Because if he told them about Kiwi, they would want to meet her (and he didn’t blame them, because she was _amazing_ ). And while he could resist Kiwi’s pleading to take her to the Library (though barely), he wasn’t sure he could withstand a combined pleading attack from three sides at once.

When Kiwi turned ten, Ezekiel briefly considered getting her a Harry Potter-style invitation to the Library for her eleventh birthday, but eleven was still _way too fucking young_ to deal with magical mayhem on a near daily basis. So he kept his mouth shut towards his team, kept replying ‘when you’re older’ every time Kiwi asked him when she was going to the Library, and left it at that. It was better this way. Better for everyone involved.

\---

Ezekiel had faced evil wizards, werewolves, rage people, an Egyptian god and Eve before she had had her morning coffee, but nothing had made him as nervous as the silence that dragged on after he had told his story. Jake was still looking like he was quietly fuming inside, while Cassandra was biting her lip, looking sad and hurt and _not_ like Ezekiel liked to see her. Only Eve looked at him with a slightly kinder expression, blue eyes soft as she nodded.

‘I gotta be honest,’ she said, ‘being set up in a nice apartment with a nanny sounds a hell of a lot better than being dragged from army camp to army camp.’

‘Thank you,’ Ezekiel muttered, looking her straight in the eye because it was better than looking anywhere else right now.

Then Cassandra cleared her throat. ‘It also sounds better than parents projecting all their hopes and dreams on to you,’ she said softly. ‘Although the keeping her a secret thing was not cool.’

‘I know,’ Ezekiel said, feeling like hundreds of pounds of rock were slowly being lifted from his chest. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, well, we’ll yell at you about that later,’ Jake grumbled. ‘Now, can we _finally_ talk about the snake people?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘But Roshwen,’ I hear you cry, ‘what happened to Madeline? And why didn’t Ezekiel help them both? Surely he could have given them a nice home away from scumbags like Mark or find some other solution than trying to take care of a kid by himself? I HAVE QUESTIONS.’ To which I say: ‘Patience, my dear. Things will be revealed in time. For now, let’s listen to Jake and focus on the snake people.’
> 
> (Also, those fried meatballs Ezekiel loves so much are called _bitterballen_ and they are delicious. Seriously. One bite out of these bad boys and your life will never be the same again).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we FINALLY get back to the snake people and Jake is Not Okay.

‘Alright, the snake people,’ Ezekiel said, ignoring the muttered _finally_ from Jake’s general direction. ‘Apparently the Serpent Brotherhood have learned a neat little new trick and apparently they thought Emmie might make a good audience for a first try-out.’

Telling the story about Andi, Kiwi and the fruit knife took considerably less time than the story about acquiring Kiwi, but judging by the reactions of his team, it made a lot more impact. Cassandra looked pale, hurt and furious, the way she always looked when the Serpent Brotherhood came up. Even though they all, (yes, even Jake. Eventually), had forgiven her long ago, she still couldn’t help taking any case that involved the Brotherhood personally. Ezekiel quietly decided to keep an eye on her; he wouldn’t put it past Cassandra to go after Andi herself, fruit knife or no. Meanwhile, Jake had not moved or said anything since the moment Ezekiel started talking, except to promise Ezekiel that a yelling would be forthcoming. This was worrying, even more so because Jake still looked very much like a stormy statue and Ezekiel had a sneaking suspicion that this was not just because of Andi the snake.

Not liking the way Jake was staring at him, Ezekiel looked at Eve instead while he told them about his midnight dash to London. She had gone rigid, blue eyes flashing with fury, before she got up from her desk and started pacing around while Ezekiel talked, unable to hear the story while sitting still. Ezekiel could practically _see_ the defense plans already being worked out in their Guardian’s head and he had never been more grateful that his team’s lives, and by extension his daughter’s life, were in the hands of a _very_ capable ex-NATO counterterrorism expert with momma bear tendencies.

Momma Baird tendencies. Whatever.

‘So that’s why she’s here now,’ Ezekiel finished. ‘Until I figure out what the hell is going on, if this snake shapeshifting is normal for them and why the hell they’re going after my kid to get to me. She’s gonna stay here.’

He didn’t expect them to argue, not when a kid’s safety was at stake. Still, the relief he felt when Jake merely nodded, Eve told him ‘of course,’ and Cassandra said ‘we’ll help you,’ was overwhelming and he quickly hid his hands in his pockets so the others wouldn’t see the shaking. ‘Thanks guys,’ he said, with what he hoped was one of his cool and confident grins, although he wouldn’t be surprised if it looked a little more emotional than usual. ‘Appreciate it. That’s all from me for now, you may now return to your regular scheduled Librarian-ing.’

Before he could hop up from the desk he was sitting on and bolt for his computer lab to enjoy his after-story telling meltdown in peace, however, Jenkins emerged from the hallway. Followed by a thoroughly soaked Kiwi, who lost no time in running over and plastering herself against Ezekiel, leaving a trail of watery footsteps behind her. ‘Dad that was _so cool_ and I know you said not to fall into the lake and I didn’t not really but then Nessie wanted to play and the bucket fell into the water and we both went to get it and I got all wet but Mr. Jenkins said Nessie is really sorry about that and it won’t happen again and please can I go with Mr. Jenkins to see the unicorns this afternoon _please?’_

The fact that Ezekiel’s shirt was now drenched as well did not matter, because Cassandra was laughing her ass off, Eve was grinning and even Jake had cracked a smile. The tension that had hung in the air was gone in an instant, so Ezekiel merely rolled his eyes to hide his own fond grin, carefully freed himself from the sopping embrace and said: ‘Sure, but you gotta dry off first. Jenkins, we got any dry clothes in size Kiwi?’

‘I will see what I can do, Mr. Jones,’ was the reply, which sounded a little less exasperated and a little more fond than Ezekiel might have expected. ‘In the meantime, I couldn’t help but overhearing and I think I might be able to answer at least one of your questions for you. Miss Emmie, can you tell your father what you just told me about the snake lady?’

Kiwi nodded, face clouding over again. ‘Her name wasn’t really Andi,’ she said. ‘Poppins only called her that because he couldn’t say her real name. She said she was from Europe and that’s why her name was so weird, but Mr. Jenkins says that he thinks that’s not true.’

‘Then what was her name, darlin’?’ Jake asked, his rigid demeanor vanished without a trace now that Kiwi was back. Instead, his voice was gentle as Kiwi inched towards Ezekiel again.

‘I can’t say it either,’ Kiwi said in a small, apologetic voice, which caused Ezekiel to go _screw it_ and hoist her up on to his lap, tucking a bedraggled curl behind her ear before he pulled her close. ‘But she wrote it down when she was trying to teach us before we gave up and it goes A-N-D-I-C-H-E.’

‘And-ee-ke?’ Cassandra said, wrinkling her nose. ‘That doesn’t sound European to me.’

Jenkins huffed. ‘That’s because it both is and is _not_ a European name, Miss Cillian. Honestly, when will everybody learn that spelling their name backwards is _not_ the perfect impenetrable disguise people think it is? For goodness’ sake, after that whole A. Lucard debacle, you’d think people would think twice before trying the same trick again.’

Shaking his head at the stupidity of the supernatural world, it took him a while to notice the four confused expressions aimed in his direction. ‘Really?’ he said again with another huff. ‘Three Librarians, one Guardian, all experts in their field and you are all fooled by a trick that hasn’t worked in ages? I might have expected this from Mr. Jones or Miss Cillian, but you, Mr. Stone, I am frankly disappointed in.’

The chorus of ‘hey’ from Ezekiel and Cassandra was lost in the sudden _pling_ of the lightbulb that went on above Jake’s head. ‘Echidna?’ he said, brow furrowed and not looking happy with his epiphany. ‘Andi’s actually Echidna?’

Jenkins nodded. ‘I believe so. Which, Mr. Jones, strengthens my suspicion from last night: she might have been a member of the Serpent Brotherhood once, but I sincerely doubt she was acting on behalf of them. Echidna is notoriously solitary and _not_ the creature to put herself in a subordinate position. I am quite certain she would not have put up with DuLaque and his cronies for long.’

If he thought the name of the creature would clarify things, Jenkins was sorely mistaken. His explanation was met with three blank faces, while Jake was still looking worried and glancing at Kiwi as if she was in mortal danger. Something Ezekiel did _not_ appreciate. ‘Mate, you’re having me on,’ he said, squeezing Kiwi a little tighter. From the way her hands were scrunching into his shirt, he didn’t think she minded. ‘Echidnas aren’t snakes. They’re practically walking pincushions with a tiny elephant trunk on their face, when I was little you could see them around the house all the time. They are _not_ dangerous, they’re _cute_.’

‘Echidnas might be cute,’ Jake said. ‘But they’re named after a snake monster from Greek mythology who is definitely _not_ cute. Hang on, just let me get…’ And with that, he got up and disappeared into the Library.

‘Oh dear,’ Cassandra said, staring after the cowboy’s retreating back. ‘He might be a while.’

\---

Of course, Jake could have just told them everything he knew about Echidna from the top of his head, which was quite a lot. Greek mythology had been one of his first loves, the subject of the first book his eight-year-old self managed to get his grubby little hands on and you would be hard-pressed to find a part of the Greek pantheon he _didn’t_ know a thing or two about.

He could have just told the others what he knew. He didn’t need to go into the Library and find a book for that.

However, he _did_ need to go into the Library and find a book because right now, it was the only thing that would keep him from punching Ezekiel in the face. _That_ was why he was here at the moment, stalking past bookshelves without seeing anything and feeling like he was going to blow at any second with the rage that was building up inside him. And it was _not_ because of the kid. Jake would _never_ direct whatever issues he had towards a kid. His dad had taught him that, and not in the right way.

No, Jake was stalking through the Library, turning this corner and that without noticing or caring where he was going, while every breath felt like barbed wire tearing up his lungs and throat, because that punk. That _fucking punk._ After three years… No, almost four years of saving the world together, of saving _each other_ more times than even Cassandra could count. After Jake and Cassandra and fucking Jones himself had started to share _everything_ together, from their secrets (or so Jake thought, at least) to their beds to their lives.

After all of that. Ezekiel had just told them he still didn’t trust them enough to let them meet his kid.

Oh, he had wrapped it up in a lot of sweet-talking, telling them he _did_ trust them, that he was sorry, that it was a matter of safety and that the Library was no place for a kid.

Yeah, right. _Fucking punk._

Jake didn’t buy a single word of all that bull. To Jake, Jones’ message had been clear as day: at the end of the day, Ezekiel still didn’t trust his team (didn’t trust _Jake_ ) with the stuff that really mattered.

And to Jake, that _hurt._

And yeah, boohoo, sue him. He _knew_ it was hypocritical as hell for him, of all people, to get upset about Ezekiel having trust issues, but that did not make things any better. Quite the opposite, in fact: it only added more fuel to the roaring fury in his gut, anger at Ezekiel and himself both blending together into one massive pyre of (un)righteous wrath.

If only the punk had started off with the snake people. Because that had sounded like a case, and a case meant action and not Jake sitting on his butt listening to Ezekiel yammer on and on about his kid’s tragic backstory (even though the part where he painted them a passionate portrait of Life with Kiwi had made Jake’s heart hurt so much, he even felt it through the red mist that was clouding his vision more and more as Ezekiel _did not stop talking_ ).

The snake people meant a case meant action meant _not having time to think._ Not having time to let the truth of the situation sink in like a weight in his gut, cold and heavy as lead. A weight that only got heavier as he realized that his blind wandering through the depths of the Library had somehow, someway, led him to the Ancient Greek wing. Where you could find books about all kinds of monsters, up to and including cannibalistic snake ladies with children who would scare the hell out of any nannies.

Jake didn’t need to get the book. Jake didn’t particularly _want_ to get the book. Right now, all he wanted was to pace up and down the main Library aisle for a couple of times more and to get his breathing back under some semblance of control. _Then_ he could grab the book he didn’t need and hope he still had enough self-control left that he wouldn’t wallop Ezekiel over the head with it as soon as he got back to the Annex.

**\---**

Jake took a long time looking for whatever it was he was looking for. So long in fact, that after drying off Kiwi and bundling her up in one of Cassandra’s fluffy pajamas (because it turned out the Library did _not,_ in fact, have any clothes in her size), Ezekiel fired up the Back Door again to go and talk to Poppins. Kiwi didn’t mind; she waited patiently in a corner of the Annex for her clothes to dry while reading a book Cassandra had found for her. It looked like it had something to do with princesses slaying dragons and Kiwi had been lost in it for the past hour, looking the epitome of the bookish, well-behaved child.

Ezekiel’s talk with Poppins was brief but effective: Poppins agreed wholeheartedly with Ezekiel about the disadvantages of having a snake person for a girlfriend. It was just a bit unfortunate that, after Andi had been stitched up, she had immediately taken off for a destination unknown, and Poppins had not been able to track her down yet. But there were pictures of her, stills of the security cameras in the apartment, so armed with those and an unshakeable trust in his facial recognition software, Ezekiel returned to the Annex after assuring Poppins that yes, Ezekiel knew that snake creatures were above Poppins’ paygrade and no, it was incredibly unlikely this would ever happen again.

The moment he stumbled back into the Annex was the same moment Jake finally re-emerged from the Library, a book the under his arm the size of Kiwi. This was slammed onto the nearest desk with force, releasing a cloud of dust that had Jake double over almost immediately in a coughing fit. When the fit had passed, he opened the book, thumbed through the ancient pages until he was about halfway and exclaimed ‘GOT IT’ in the manner of crazy (and not-so-crazy) scientists everywhere.

‘Got what?’ Cassandra asked, getting up from her desk to stand next to Jake, peering at the book over his shoulder. Ezekiel couldn’t help but notice that this also put her in the perfect position to surreptitiously rub a hand up and down Jake’s back. He had also noticed the long, worried looks Cassandra had been stealing towards the Library the longer Jake stayed away, just as he had noticed how the cowboy had _not_ looked like a happy camper when he took off. There was a sinking feeling in Ezekiel’s gut that told him the Kiwi honeymoon phase was about to end, and the fallout was about to start.

Well. That had been bound to happen anyway. He just hoped they would wait until Kiwi was out of earshot again before they let him have it.

‘What you got, cowboy?’ he asked, sauntering over as well with a confidence he didn’t really feel.

‘Echidna,’ Jake declared, making Kiwi jump up and make her way over too, wriggling herself through the three of them until she was standing in front of the desk. ‘Here, listen to what Hesiod says:

_And in a hollow cave she bore another monster, irresistible, in no wise like either to mortal men or to the undying gods, even the goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. And there she has a cave deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. There, then, did the gods appoint her a glorious house to dwell in: and she keeps guard in Arima beneath the earth, grim Echidna, a nymph who dies not nor grows old all her days.’_

‘What does that mean?’ Kiwi asked, voice barely a whisper and her eyes huge and glued to the ancient letters.

‘That she’s half human, half snake,’ Jake explained, switching effortlessly from his lecture voice to something that Ezekiel had already started to call Uncle Jake. ‘And that she lives in a cave somewhere, where she eats people. And because she’s only half human, she can’t die and she’ll never grow old.’

Kiwi grew pale and Ezekiel wanted to throw up, but Jake continued: ‘ _Men say that Typhon the terrible, outrageous and lawless, was joined in love to her, the maid with glancing eyes,_ which means she was married to some kind of snake giant. And if you look here, you can see she is known as the mother of monsters. _’_

‘Well, she sounds fun,’ Eve said, joining them on the other side of Jake’s desk. ‘Mother of monsters, really?’

Jake nodded, turning aside a little so Kiwi could grab a hold of Ezekiel’s hand. ‘Yeah. Look at this: according to Hesiod, she’s the mother of Cerberus, the Hydra, the Chimera, the friggin’ _Sphinx_ even. That’s one hell of a family.’

‘Yikes,’ Cassandra said, still leaning in a little closer to Jake than strictly necessary. ‘Well, her being a snake creature does explain the Serpent Brotherhood tattoo. Must be a birds of a feather sort of thing.’

‘Snakes of a scale sort of thing, rather’ Jake muttered, earning him a glare from Ezekiel and a shove from Cassandra.

‘That’s all bloody interesting and all that,’ Ezekiel said, ‘but does it say anything about her going after someone’s kids?’

Jake shook his head. ‘Nope. Just people who happened to wander past her cave, I guess.’

‘And as of the past few centuries, no people at all,’ came a voice from the kitchen. The voice was soon followed by Jenkins himself, carrying Kiwi’s dried clothing. ‘She turned to wild animals as soon as the various police forces of the world got their act together and before they could start to investigate all those disappearances down a certain country road in southern Greece.’

‘Clever,’ Cassandra muttered. ‘But if she’s solitary, not part of… of an evil gang anymore, and prefers to spend her time in a cave in Greece eating deer and rabbits, then what on earth was she doing in London posing as an evil stepmother?’

Kiwi snorted and Ezekiel fought the urge to shoot Cassandra a grateful look. However, Jenkins made a face, and it was not the face someone who knows the answer to the question usually makes. ‘There you have me, Miss Cillian. I have absolutely no idea why this creature would come after Miss Emmie.’

Jake looked down at Kiwi, his tension gone and his expression soft again. ‘Your dad said that Andi wanted you to give him a message,’ he said gently. ‘Did she tell you what that message was?’

Kiwi shook her head and squeaked something that sounded like ‘no’. Ezekiel’s fingers were getting numb in the death grip she had on his hand but he barely noticed, busy as he still was fighting the urge to vomit _._

‘It might be that Emmie was not the intended target,’ Eve said with a frown, looking from Kiwi up to Ezekiel. ‘Jones, you piss off any snake monsters lately?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Ezekiel muttered. Eve’s speculation had crossed his mind as well, and even though he much preferred any supernatural creature to come after him instead of his kid, that did _not_ mean he was thrilled with the idea. It seemed Kiwi was even less pleased, however, because there was a barely audible whimpering going on next to him, followed by a suspicious sniffle.

And that was even less okay. ‘Hey,’ he said, stepping back from Jake’s desk and tugging Kiwi along with him, out of the crowd, before he sank down on his haunches so he could look her in the eye. Eyes that were shining with wetness again, even though she was visibly trembling with the effort to be brave in front of everybody. Ezekiel was well aware of four pairs of eyes digging into his back, but he firmly ignored all of them as he wiped a treacherous tear from Kiwi’s cheek and said: ‘Hey, Kiwi, can you listen to me?’

Nod. Sniffle.

‘I know Andi’s scary, okay? But you know what we do here?’

Sniffle. Nod.

‘We deal with the scary things. And while we do that, you’re gonna stay here with Jenkins and play with Nessie and feed the unicorns and go see all those things I told you about. Okay?’

Nod.

‘Okay. Come on, Kiwi?’

Another nod and an ‘okay, Yodad,’ so softly Ezekiel barely heard it. Which was good, because he was going to have a hell of a time explaining _that_ one to the others.

Then, vaguely aware of some commotion behind him and with one hand still keeping a reassuring hold on Kiwi’s shoulder, Ezekiel drew back and turned around right in time to see the Clippings Book start to flutter. He stood up, inwardly cursing the timing of whatever creature or artefact was causing trouble, while Eve stalked over, took one look at the glowing pages and groaned. ‘Guys, the snake monster will have to wait because apparently, we’re going to Vegas.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Echidnas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna) vs. [Echidna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna_\(mythology\)). Tbh, I like the ant eaters better than the people eater.
> 
> Also, the part that Jake is reading is lifted verbatim from Hesiod's [Theogony](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D270), lines 300 - 310-ish.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jenkins makes a mistake, Kiwi explores the Library and Ezekiel and Cassandra Talk.

Jenkins _might_ have made a slight error in judgment. And it was completely understandable, as he kept telling himself while rounding the corner of the Native American wing in the Library at a slightly higher speed than usual. Completely understandable and forgivable, a minor slip up that could have happened to anybody.

The Native American wing was empty. _Blast._

He had only gone into his lab for _five minutes._ And yes, that five minutes had accidentally lasted about an hour, but even so _._ That was _not_ his fault. These things _happened._ Especially since the Librarians were out on a case involving a cursed slot machine that made Las Vegas even more of a miserable hellhole than it usually was, leaving the Annex finally quiet enough for Jenkins to get some work done.

Jenkins had never thought that _quiet_ would be a word he’d ever associate with Ezekiel Jones in any way, shape or form. But here he was, stalking through the Library and cursing the fact that the child he had offered to take care of had been so well-behaved while feeding the unicorns, and had been so sweet and quiet when they came back, installing herself in a corner with a book just as she had done before, that Jenkins had simply… forgotten? No. Trusted? Not particularly, either. _Assumed._

He’d assumed she’d stay there, reading her book, while he nipped into his lab for just a second.

And good grief, Jenkins was an idiot. An idiot, a fool and an ass for thinking that the offspring of Ezekiel Jones would be anything less than trouble.

\---

Kiwi had never seen so many books. She hadn’t known there could _be_ so many books. When her dad had told her stories about the Library, she had always imagined something like the library she used to go to back in London. But that was just a municipal library, and even though it was pretty big, this place was _huge._ As she stood in the doorway, gaping in awe, Kiwi could only see partway down the main aisle which was lined with over a _hundred_ bookshelves. Or it might have been more; Kiwi was never that good at math.

She _was_ good at reading, though. In fact, she _loved_ reading. And here, right here in front of her was the biggest room she’d ever seen, filled with more books and magical wonders than she’d ever known and there was no one on earth who could stop her from going in.

\---

The Mayan artefacts wing was empty as well. _Good._ Jenkins didn’t want to think what would happen if the child got her hands on one of the artefacts in there. Or any kind of artefact, really.

As he reached the main Library aisle again, ears straining for the sound of implosions, explosions or any other kind of imminent disaster, he asked himself for the tenth time in as many minutes why he had ever offered to babysit the scamp in the first place.

Except she hadn’t _looked_ like a scamp. She had looked like a little girl who had just discovered first-hand that monsters were, in fact, real. Scared and shaken, but resilient enough to replace that fear with wonder and a boundless enthusiasm as soon as she found out that not only monsters were real, but so were unicorns. Plus, although Jenkins would _never_ admit it out loud that this had been a factor in the current situation, she had her father’s smile. Which was dangerous enough in itself, because even Jenkins could not always withstand the full bright force of the Ezekiel Jones™ grin, but on the girl, it was just plain lethal. Jenkins was not a weak man, but one look at the child’s raptured face as he opened the gate to the unicorn pasture and he had been like putty in her little hands.

Which was probably the main reason Jenkins was now pacing towards the Time Machines wing, heart pounding heavier and thoughts getting darker with every step, all the while praying that the child had not found her way in _there_.

\---

Kiwi’s first few steps into the Library came to a sudden halt when a flying sword zoomed straight towards her, point aimed at her throat and growling darkly. Instead of being properly terrified, however, Kiwi grinned her widest grin because what her dad had told her was _true._ Not that she would ever doubt her dad, not after seeing this place, but still. It was _true. Really true._

Swallowing a burst of hysterical giggles but still grinning widely, Kiwi put her hands up, careful not to touch the sword. ‘Hi,’ she said, voice sounding more like an excited squeak. ‘Oh my god, hi!’

The sword stopped growling as it heard her voice, then started sniffing her up and down while Kiwi stood motionless. Or as motionless as she could while vibrating with excitement. Just as she thought she could not stand still any longer, Excalibur finished sniffing and started yapping, whirling around her in a dizzying blur of shining steel before it took off, flying back and forth into the Library and letting out high-pitched barks that could only mean he wanted Kiwi to come in as well.

Well. Kiwi did not have to think twice about that.

\---

‘What do you mean _you lost her_?’

‘Ah, Mr. Jones. Congratulations on your speedy return. Is the slot machine secure?’

‘It is, for now. Stone is getting a trolley cart to get it back in here. And what do you mean _you lost her_?’

Jenkins had never been scared of Ezekiel. Come to think of it, Jenkins had not been scared of _anyone_ in a long time. But the sight of a furious Ezekiel Jones, dark eyes flashing and the usual happy grin replaced by tight-lipped anger was enough to strike fear into anyone’s heart, immortal or not.

\---

The people in the mirror had been very nice, Kiwi mused as she wandered on. They were old, like, _really_ old _,_ they looked even older than Mr. Jenkins, but they had been very nice. They had warned her not to touch anything, as if her dad hadn’t told her a million times that the things in the Library could be dangerous, and then they had promised to tell her some stories about the Library her dad didn’t know. Kiwi found it a little hard to believe that her dad didn’t know everything, but she had promised the nice lady she’d come back later. And that she would always keep her receipts, whatever those were.

Lost in thought and wonder, Kiwi continued her meandering way through the Library, Excalibur on her heels. He had refused to leave her alone, which was all too fine by Kiwi. Puppies were cool and all, but having a _flying sword_ that _behaved_ like a puppy, that was just _awesome._

\---

‘Jones, calm down.’

‘Ezekiel, please. Stop panicking.’

‘Jones, she’s probably just exploring things. God knows it’s what I would do.’

‘Jake, you _did._ After the Library came back, we didn’t see you for a week.’

‘See? Jones, you can’t just park your kid right here, next to a _magical library,_ and then expect her to sit still and wait for you to come back.’

‘Not if she’s your kid, anyway.’

‘Cassie, darlin’, that’s not helping. I mean it’s true, but it’s not helping.’

\---

Kiwi was getting tired. She had been lost in the Library for at least two hours by now, maybe three. Add that to the fact that she had been swinging from fear to excitement and back pretty much continuously for the past fourteen hours _and_ the fact that, back in London, she would have been in bed by now, and her exploration trek through the Library now became more of a search for a place to sit down for a bit.

Since it was her first time in the Library, Kiwi did not know that the reading nook she suddenly saw, had not yet been there yesterday. But that didn’t matter: all that Kiwi could see was that there was a couch, and a blanket and some pillows, and a pile of books. Not the dusty old ones like in the rest of the Library; these were books she _knew_. There were the first three Harry Potter books (her dad had told her she could read the other four as soon as she turned twelve, which was _unfair_ ). Next to those, there was a neat pile of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Behind that, the Redwall series made up an even higher pile. And right next to the couch, lined up as if someone had known these were Kiwi’s personal favorite were all eight Artemis Fowl books.

This was _awesome._ Armed with _Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident,_ Kiwi made her way to the couch, buried herself in the blanket and started reading. Soon, she was so lost in the ice cold adventures of teenage genius criminals that she didn’t even notice Excalibur quietly floating away.

\---

When Ezekiel found her half an hour later (it had taken a while for them to understand why Excalibur was acting like Lassie warning them Timmy fell down a well, but they got there in the end), she was fast asleep, curled up on the couch with the book face down on the floor. It seemed a shame to wake her, but it was nearing 6pm and Ezekiel was tired, hungry, still coming down from a _fucking hell my kid got lost in the Library were we keep all the really dangerous magic stuff_ panic and all in all, he was ready to go home. ‘Hey,’ he murmured, shaking Kiwi’s shoulder gently. ‘Hey, Kiwi, wake up.’

One bleary eye cracked open. ‘Dad? Where…’

‘Still in the Library, kid,’ Ezekiel said, smiling as Kiwi blinked back into consciousness. ‘Where I don’t think Jenkins said you could go, or did he?’

‘But,’ Kiwi said, with all the self-assurance of a ten-year-old who knows they’re in the wrong, ‘he didn’t say I _shouldn’t._ ’

God, Ezekiel’s kid was going to kill him. Heroically suppressing the urge to burst out laughing, Ezekiel instead raised an eyebrow and said, hoping his voice wasn’t quivering too much: ‘Did you touch anything?’

Kiwi shook her head vehemently, and Ezekiel decided she was probably telling the truth. Not only was she still alive and unharmed, the Library was still there, quiet and peaceful, which meant the more apocalyptic and lethal artefacts were still untouched. Thank god.

‘Okay then,’ he said, reaching out and peeling his kid out of the blanket. ‘Then I think it’s time to go home.’

\---

Before they went home, though, Ezekiel sent Kiwi to apologize to Jenkins while he had a quiet word with Cassandra. Jake and Eve were putting the cursed slot machine away in the Modern Artefacts wing, which gave Ezekiel the perfect opportunity to tell Cassandra he was not coming home with them tonight.

‘I’m taking Kiwi to one of my places,’ he said, fighting the urge to fidget with his fingers under Cassandra’s gaze. ‘I uhm… I know I kind of sprung her on you without warning this morning and I know you and Stone probably want to talk about all of this so I’m. I’m taking Kiwi with me so the two of you can have some time to, to decide how you want to deal with this.’

Cassandra nodded, the soft smile she had when looking at Kiwi making place for a frown when she turned back to Ezekiel. ‘That’s probably a good idea,’ she said, and even though it had been Ezekiel’s own idea in the first place, the fact that she agreed still hurt a little.

‘And I wanted to thank you,’ Ezekiel said, looking at a point about two inches above and to the left of Cassandra’s shoulder because looking her in the eye was getting harder and harder. ‘For being so cool with her. I mean, I know you wouldn’t be hard on her anyway but you know. You didn’t have to let her borrow your pajamas or, or make her pancakes or give her that book. So. Thank you.’

The look Cassandra gave him told him, clear as day, that she might be cool with Ezekiel's daughter, but if she was still cool with Ezekiel himself was another matter entirely. ‘She’s adorable,’ Cassandra said with another sidelong glance at Kiwi. ‘And you are really sweet with her, and that’s… that’s really cool to see and kind of adorable too. But.’

She paused, and even though he knew what was coming, the _but_ still felt like a lump of ice landing in Ezekiel’s gut.

‘But I thought we didn’t keep that kind of secrets anymore,’ Cassandra continued, blue eyes now fixed on Ezekiel again and her voice soft with hurt. ‘At least not… not between us.’

‘I know,’ Ezekiel muttered, repeating the mantra for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. ‘I’m sorry.’

Cassandra closed her eyes and stood there in silence for a long moment, face scrunched up and throat working as if she was swallowing back something nauseating. Ezekiel looked on in worry, letting the silence draw out because he was _not_ going to be the one to break it. He had no idea how, even if he wanted to.

Then Cassandra opened her eyes again and looked at Ezekiel, the hurt replaced by a severity that was even more terrifying. ‘Okay, first thing. If you say ‘I know, I’m sorry’ _one more time,_ I might actually start throwing punches.’

That was fair. Ezekiel was probably just as sick of saying it as she was of hearing it.

‘Second thing.’ Now the severity faded, and Cassandra’s shoulders lost a little of their tension. Which was great, because it meant Ezekiel could breathe a little more freely as well. ‘Second thing, even though we might not be cool with you now, doesn’t mean we won’t ever be again, okay?’

‘Did you see the way the cowboy looked at me today?’ Ezekiel asked, not so sure about the truth of Cassandra’s statement. ‘He is _pissed._ ’

‘Oh, I’m not saying Jake won’t want to kill you for a while,’ Cassandra said. In an unreasonably cheery voice, Ezekiel thought. ‘And he will _definitely_ shout at you for a while as soon as he’s got the chance, you know, maybe even throw in a punch or two. But. Uhm. Well, you know. We’ve gotten over worse things.’

This was said with a self-deprecating smile that made Ezekiel immediately feel like ten kinds of ass. ‘I know,’ he muttered, raising his hands in a placating manner when Cassandra’s eyes flashed. ‘Hey, I just said ‘I know,’ okay? I know. I know we’ve been through worse, but still.’

‘We’ve been through worse,’ Cassandra repeated softly. ‘But we’ll still need time, Ezekiel.’

‘You got it,’ Ezekiel said, just as softly and trying not to feel like the lump of ice in his stomach was spreading out through his entire body. ‘You got it. All the time you need.’


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lot of difficult questions are asked (mainly by Kiwi) and Jake and Cassandra try to Deal With This.
> 
> TW: this chapter contains mentions of abuse again + minor character death.

Of course, as soon as Kiwi found out that the two of them were not going to the same home as the princess and the cowboy, she demanded to know why. Loudly. And repeatedly.

‘We have to go with them,’ she insisted, hands in her sides and eyes ablaze, a tiny fury that would have had Ezekiel quaking in his shoes if he hadn’t already seen the sight a hundred times. ‘We have to, Uncle Jake promised to make me more pancakes tomorrow so we have to be there.’

Oh, did Uncle Jake. Ezekiel sighed, closing his eyes and mentally cursing the world’s weakest cowboy, and said: ‘Kiwi, we can’t. We can’t go with them tonight, we gotta stay here instead.’

‘But _why,’_ Kiwi whined, face scrunching up in frustration. ‘ _Why_ do we gotta stay here?’

‘Because this is a safe house,’ Ezekiel said, taking Kiwi by the shoulder and walking her with him to the front door. ‘Look, you remember what I told you about locks? This is one of the best locks there is. There’s camera’s outside and inside, I got motion sensors in the hallway, alarms that go off when someone opens or breaks a window and best of all, there’s a porter downstairs who knows every face in the building and he will immediately press a big red button if he sees someone come in who does not belong here.’

Kiwi still looked mulish, so Ezekiel lowered himself to her level, looking her straight in the eye as he said: ‘Kiwi, listen. If we stay at Uncle Jake’s place, we don’t have any of this and Andi or anyone else can barge straight in. She can’t do that in here.’

That was not the whole reason of course, but it was a good one. A plausible one. And it was definitely easier than telling his kid _so yeah the cowboy and the princess are super pissed at me because I never told them about you._ He could just imagine the look on Kiwi’s face as he told her that, which was… no. Not going there. Best to make this a safety issue.

Kiwi’s gaze went from the door lock (which _was_ impressive and which would be a challenge to crack even for Ezekiel) to her dad and back. Then she looked around the apartment, which, for a safe house, was pretty spacious and comfortably furnished. Ezekiel had never understood why safe houses always had to be cramped, cold and uncomfortable with one threadbare couch, rickety furniture and a single bed that was only slightly softer than the floor. That was why this apartment featured not only a huge, heavy and comfortable leather couch, a queen size bed and one of the most sophisticated home entertainment sets on the market, but also a decent kitchen, a bathroom with more options than your average spaceship and, best of all, at least a dozen takeout options only five minutes away. Hideouts could be safe _and_ nice.

Amidst all this luxury, you almost wouldn’t notice the blinking led lights of the various cameras and intruder sensors Ezekiel had put up. And yeah, he might have gone a little overboard, but if he had learned anything during his time as the best _and_ most wanted thief on the planet, it was that there was no such thing as too much security. Apparently though, his safety measures were not reassuring Kiwi as much as he’d hoped. She kept looking around, brow furrowed when she turned back to him and asked: ‘Are you scared of Andi?’

That was not an easy question to answer. Because no, Ezekiel was not scared of Andi herself. He had listened to Jake’s explanation this morning, and although she did _not_ sound like something he would want to meet in a dark alley, he was pretty sure that he had faced worse. But on the other hand…

On the other hand, the idea of a cannibalistic snake monster coming anywhere _near_ his kid, filled him with so much terror he could barely breathe.

He didn’t tell Kiwi that either, though. At least, not outright. She had had enough terror for the day, so instead of replying immediately, he stood up and made his way over to the couch, where Kiwi soon nestled herself against him in a warm ball of skinny limbs.

‘Do you remember when we watched the Lion King last time I was in London?’ Ezekiel asked, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closer. Kiwi nodded.

‘And do you remember how Mufasa says he is not scared of the hyenas, but that he was really scared of losing Simba?’

Kiwi nodded again, peering up at him while understanding dawned. ‘Are you Mufasa? And is Andi the hyenas?’

Ezekiel grinned. ‘I’m Mufasa, and Andi is the hyenas. And you’re Simba,’ he said, only to be met with a devious smile, followed by a very passable Kiwi lion roar. Granted, it sounded a little like Simba’s first try, but with a mass of wild curls that doubled as manes and her fingers bent like claws, it was pretty impressive. And pretty adorable, which was why Ezekiel could not _not_ retaliate and give her his best Mufasa roar, pouncing on her with his own set of finger claws so that Kiwi jumped back and yelped in surprise before she collapsed in a fit of giggles. However, as soon as she had her breath back, Kiwi went in for a second try, sparking a roar-off that went on for several minutes until both their throats were raw and they were both too breathless with laughter to continue.

Once they had both settled down, Kiwi snuggled close against Ezekiel again. Suddenly the hilarity faded and she looked up with a worried frown. ‘But don’t the hyenas kill Mufasa by making him get trampled by wildebeests?’

Shit. That would teach Ezekiel to try and manage emotional conversations with the help of Disney movies.

‘Tell you what,’ he said, squeezing Kiwi’s shoulders, ‘I promise I won’t get trampled by wildebeests if you promise to tell Uncle Jake tomorrow you had vegetables for dinner instead of pizza.’

It took Kiwi a moment to work that one out, but then she let out a delighted cheer that told Ezekiel she was fully on board with that idea.

\---

While eating their pizza, instead of the Lion King, they watched Lilo and Stich. It was Kiwi’s favorite and Ezekiel knew from previous experience that the combination of a long day, a belly full of pizza and a movie she had seen a hundred times would put her under in no time. He was not wrong: thirty minutes in and Kiwi’s head was already resting heavy against his shoulder, yawning and straining to keep her eyes open.

‘Come on, kid,’ Ezekiel said, pausing the movie and nudging her gently upright. ‘Off to bed with you.’

Kiwi didn’t even protest, which told him more than anything how tired she was. The only thing she wanted to know, as they got off the couch while on the screen, Stitch was frozen in his attempt to destroy his self-made replica of San Francisco, was if Ezekiel had ever fought an alien.

‘Not yet,’ Ezekiel replied as he followed her to the bedroom, carrying the suitcase with Kiwi clothing he had gathered after his talk with Poppins that afternoon. ‘But as soon as I meet them, I’ll definitely let you know.’

That answer seemed to satisfy Kiwi enough to get changed, brush her teeth and crawl into bed without further comment. It wasn’t until she had fully snuggled herself under the covers that she looked at Ezekiel again. ‘Dad?’

Ezekiel had seen that look before and braced himself, because he already suspected what was coming. In fact, he was a bit surprised she hadn’t mentioned it earlier. ‘Yeah?’ he asked softly.

Kiwi was quiet for a moment before she said, fidgeting with the blanket and voice small: ‘You… you always said that when I was old enough we’d go to the Library and…’

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to, because Ezekiel knew full well what she wanted to say. ‘You want to go visit your mom?’ he said, sitting himself down on the side of the bed, looking down at Kiwi who nodded without looking up at him. Instead she kept her eyes fixed on her hands, still picking on imaginary blanket fluff. ‘You always said we could go if I was old enough,’ she repeated. ‘And if we go through the magic door, then we don’t have to go on an airplane. We could just… go and we’d be there.’

His kid made a good point. Too good for Ezekiel to refute with any kind of proper argument, even if he had wanted to. So rather than trying to get out of the conversation, Ezekiel turned and hunched down on the floor beside the bed, so he could look Kiwi in the eye as he gently told her: ‘If you really want to go, then we’ll go. But _after_ we’ve dealt with Andi, okay? One thing at a time.’

Kiwi nodded again and shifted, burying herself deeper into the pillow. ‘’kay.’

Ezekiel smiled and tucked one stray sandy lock behind her ear, letting his hand rest on the blanket for a moment before he got up from the floor. ‘Goodnight, Kiwi.’

‘G’night, dad.’

\---

_‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ Ezekiel said, softly and a bit belatedly as he sat himself down on a rickety chair in Madeline’s neighbor’s kitchen. ‘I could help you. Get you a new place, away from Mark, make sure he won’t find you there… you could stay with her.’_

_Madeline hiccupped a laugh and looked at the table, smiling weakly. ‘I knew you were a sweet kid,’ she muttered. Then she looked up, despair fading and replaced by determination. ‘But no. No, you can’t… you can’t help me. Not really. Not in the way I need.’_

_Because Mark hadn’t been the first. There had been Joey, and Tom. And Richard, who had been a dick in every sense of the word. And if Madeline did not get help,_ professional _help, Mark would not be the last either. There was a pattern, and Ezekiel was not the person who could help Madeline get out of it._

_Ezekiel got it. He didn’t completely agree, but he got it. And since Madeline was wobbling dangerously close to tears again, he decided not to press the issue._

_\---_

_Two weeks later, Ezekiel was sitting in a chair in a hospital room staring at a bed, at a body broken beyond repair and desperately wishing he_ had _pressed the issue._

_It seemed Mark had also disagreed with Madeline’s plan. Just a little more strongly than Ezekiel._

\---

The next morning, Kiwi sat at the breakfast table, quietly munching her cornflakes while holding a staring contest with the table, the way she usually did when there was a serious problem being worked out behind those big brown eyes.

The cornflakes had caused a small battle that morning, as Ezekiel had feared: ‘Uncle Jake would’ve made me pancakes!’

‘Yeah, but Uncle Jake isn’t here and pancakes aren’t good for you.’

‘Pizza isn’t good for me either.’

‘And that’s exactly why you’re getting cornflakes now.’

The cornflakes had been accepted, eventually, with only minimal grumbling. As was the orange juice that followed (‘I wanted orange soda!’ ‘Kiwi, no one drinks orange soda for breakfast. No one.’). Now, Ezekiel was watching his kid shoveling her breakfast in her mouth while he chewed his toast and waited patiently until the cogwheels had stopped spinning.

They did so after a while, when Kiwi blinked and landed back into this universe with an almost audible _thud._ ‘Dad?’

Ezekiel swallowed the last bit of toast and focused on the first Question of the day. ‘Yeah?’

‘You’re not afraid of Andi, right?’

It was almost the same question as last night, but Ezekiel could sense the different undertone. Which was why, instead of trying to go the Disney way again, he simply said: ‘No, I’m not.’

Kiwi nodded, giving this answer some due consideration before she said: ‘Because you fight monsters all the time?’

‘All the time,’ Ezekiel replied with a cocky grin. ‘And they don’t know what hit ‘em.’

The grin was met with a weak smile before Kiwi bit her lip, looking more and more uncertain. ‘But have you ever _been_ scared of a monster?’

Ah. Now, Ezekiel could see the direction this was going. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘Do you remember when I told you about how I almost got turned into a werewolf?’

Kiwi did. ‘But that sounded really cool,’ she said, brow furrowed. ‘You said you were almost disappointed you didn’t really become one.’

‘Yeah, but that’s because adventures always sound really cool once they’re over,’ Ezekiel said. ‘But if you’re still in one, they can be really scary.’ He paused for a moment, then said gently: ‘Kiwi, if you’re scared of Andi, that’s okay. I get it.’

‘But I don’t _want_ to be scared,’ Kiwi said, voice suddenly hard and gripping her cornflake spoon so tight, her knuckles became white. ‘I want to be _angry._ Like Tiffany, when she met the Queen she wasn’t scared but she was so angry that she hit her with a frying pan and then she won and everybody got home safe.’

‘And you cut Andi with a knife to make her let you go,’ Ezekiel said, silently re-evaluating his decision to give Kiwi the Tiffany Aching books for her birthday. And also silently resolving to keep any frying pans and other kitchen equipment out of her reach for the foreseeable future. ‘And you know, Tiffany only went into the Queen’s land because there were no grownups to help her, only the Feegles. But you got me, and Uncle Jake, and Cassandra and Eve and Jenkins.’

Kiwi looked a little more cheerful when she remembered what kind of team she had, so Ezekiel continued: ‘Sometimes the best thing to do _is_ whacking a monster with a frying pan. But you also gotta know when to get out and call for help.’

‘Call for backup, you mean,’ Kiwi said with a grin.

Ezekiel nodded, grinning as well. ‘Call for backup.’

\---

Breakfast done and dishes put away, they were heading downstairs towards the car when Kiwi hesitated again. ‘Dad?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Promise you won’t be like Mufasa?’

Ezekiel tended not to make his kid any promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. But there were also things you could and could not say to a ten-year-old who was already trying her hardest not to be scared. ‘I promise, Kiwi.’

And truth be told, Ezekiel really was not all that worried about Andi, or monsters in general. What _did_ tie his stomach in knots as they drove out of Portland and down the country road on the way to the Annex, was the thought of facing Jake and Cassandra. Because for some reason, he sincerely doubted they spent last night eating pizza and watching Disney movies together.

**\---**

Ezekiel was right. As soon as Jake and Cassandra stumbled through the door into their apartment, Cassandra immediately took off into the kitchen, muttering something about cleaning up the breakfast mess, while Jake slowly sat himself down on the couch and tried to keep breathing.

It took him a while to get the hang of it. At least five minutes, but closer to ten, to dispel the cloud of hurt and confusion and fury around him and to realize that, for someone who was supposed to be doing dishes, Cassandra was being awfully quiet.

Shit. Jake had done it again, hadn’t he. He’d been so caught up in his own misery, so completely wallowing in self-pity, that he hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t even _thought_ about how Cassandra must be hurting. While he, of all people, should know just how important their trust was to her, his and Ezekiel’s both. Jake might have been furious about Ezekiel’s secret, and he believed he had every right to be. But Cassandra…

_Shit._

He got up, quietly berating himself for being such an ass, and made his way into the kitchen, where Cassandra was standing at the sink, head bent down and staring at the dirty dishes as if they held the answers to all the mysteries in the universe. She hadn’t turned the lights on; the only light there was came from outside, a dim yellow glow of streetlights that only deepened the shadows in the room.

‘Hey,’ he said softly, coming closer until he could slide a hand down her back and around her waist, settling it warm and heavy on her hipbone. ‘You okay?’

Cassandra shook her head, then turned and buried her face in his shoulder, arms closing low around his waist like a vice and her hands scrunching into his shirt. Her entire frame stood rigid with tension, which was why Jake wrapped her up tight in both arms and held her there while he sank his nose into her hair, closing his eyes and breathing in warmth and comfort with just a hint of vanilla. The two of them stood there for a long time, wrapped up in each other in a cold and darkened kitchen, trying to make sense of the way their world been set wobbling on its axis.

At last Cassandra took a deep breath, heaved an equally deep and slightly damp sigh and drew back just enough to mutter: ‘I feel like such an idiot.’

Jake had no intention of letting go or drawing back or doing any such thing, so his voice was still muffled by Cassandra’s hair. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We _know_ him. _’_ Cassandra paused to swallow and rest her forehead against Jake’s shoulder again, her slender frame now so tense it was starting to tremble with it, so Jake quietly slipped one hand between her sweater and her top to rub a warm and soothing path up and down her back. ‘We _know_ him, we _know_ he keeps secrets, he never tells us where he’s going or what his life was like before the Library or… or _anything,_ we _know_ that. Then why…’ She stopped again, voice getting too thick to continue.

‘Because he does tell us the important stuff,’ Jake said, pulling her even closer as he felt his shirt getting suspiciously moist. ‘I mean… he told us about the time loop. And why he can’t sleep without a night light, so yeah. We know he has secrets, but he always told us things when they were important.’

Or at least, so they had thought.

Cassandra was quiet again for a long moment, face still hidden in his shirt, until she huffed the weakest of weak laughs and drew back again. ‘Although I guess now we know _where_ he runs off to without telling us.’

One of the main advantages of speaking nine languages, was that your swearword vocabulary was also about nine times larger than that of the average person. It was a good thing Cassandra _didn’t_ speak nine languages; from the few scant words she caught, she could easily gather that the rest of it was _not_ fit for a lady’s ears.

At last, Jake ran out of either breath, inspiration, or both. As silence fell again, Cassandra felt the tension slowly seep out of her until just a bone deep weariness was left. Judging by the way Jake was now becoming more of a heavy weight than a supporting presence, the same thing was happening to him. Which was why they at last made their way out of the kitchen and into the living room, sinking down on the couch while still holding on to each other.

‘What do we do now,’ Jake asked, voice low and rough as Cassandra curled into him, resting her head on his chest while one hand started automatically fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Jake’s arm wrapped securely around her waist again, hand splayed safe and warm across her stomach and fingers curling gently into the soft wool of her sweater.

‘I know,’ Cassandra murmured as Jake’s his arm squeezed her tighter for a moment. ‘We let Ezekiel get eaten by the snake monster and then we take Emmie in and just pretend she’s been ours all along.’

Jake’s tired laugh ruffled through her hair. ‘Don’t tempt me, Cassie.’

‘For real though,’ Cassandra said quietly after a short pause. ‘Would you… would you want to? Take her in, I mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jake said just as quietly. And then, answering the question beneath the question: ‘I never really thought about it. Having a kid. Never… never really thought it’d be a road I’d step on.’

Cassandra hummed in response. ‘But you love kids,’ she said, a little surprised and shifting so she could look up at him. ‘You’re great with them, I think Emmie now loves you more than she loves her own dad.’

‘Only because of the pancakes,’ Jake said, looking down at her with a smile tinged with the sadness of lost opportunities. ‘It’s just… well, when I was back home there was no way. With my old man stomping around and terrorizing everybody, I wasn’t gonna bring a kid in there if I could help it. And anyway, even if I’d wanted to. Never found the person to have them with.’ He swallowed and Cassandra snuggled closer. That last bit had sounded a little more pained than she’d expected, so she took his hand, laced her fingers through his and held on tight.

‘And now… well. Jones was right,’ Jake continued, giving Cassandra’s hand a grateful squeeze. ‘Workin’ in a magic Library, it ain’t exactly a kid-friendly environment. So yeah, I never… never really had to think about havin’ ‘em, ‘cause it was clear it wasn’t gonna happen.’

Cassandra smiled despite herself. ‘I think that’s the first time I heard you say Ezekiel was right about something.’

This made Jake smile as well, blue eyes softening for a moment before he sobered again. ‘What about you?’ he asked, voice gentle as he looked down at her again.

Cassandra shrugged and bit her lip. ‘Same thing, different reasons,’ she said, aiming for light and almost hitting the mark. ‘Not really looking forward to letting another kid near my parents, and even if I’d found someone, well. You know. It’s not really fair to have a kid when you don’t know if you’re going to be around long enough to see them go to kindergarten.’

Jake didn’t reply to that, because honestly what was he going to say. Instead he gave a noncommittal hum before he bent down and dropped a kiss into Cassandra’s hair, right at that spot where her hair was still a little shorter than the rest. It was their little victory gesture, a brief reaffirmation that she was still here, that she would _be_ here for the foreseeable future, that she could now live and love and _be_ loved without fear of it all inevitably falling away. Cassandra’s eyes fell shut as she felt Jake’s lips in her hair, a complicated expression crossing her face before she looked up and nuzzled a kiss into the stubble on his cheek in return.

‘I don’t think I’d have wanted them anyway,’ she said, resting her forehead against Jake’s cheek. ‘But then again, before I came to the Library, things were never really about whether I wanted them or not.’

‘And now?’ Jake asked, pressing another kiss to the side of her head. ‘What do you want to do now?’

Cassandra stilled for a moment before she let out a sound between a laugh and a huff. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I still like my first idea, though.’

‘Yeah, I liked the sound of that too’ Jake muttered. ‘Sounded to me like a damn good plan.’


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn (a little) more about Echidna and Jake and Ezekiel finally get to shout at each other, but it all seems to end pretty well. Or does it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you starting to get confused at the inconsistent usage of Emmie/Kiwi (I know I am), here's the rule: when it's Ezekiel's POV she's called Kiwi, when it's one of the other's (or her own), she's called Emmie. And yes, I know this means I'll have to go back and make some changes in chapter 8, for example, but from now on, that's gonna be the rule.

The bitch of the thing was, as Jake realized the next morning as he sat at his desk, trying to filter more information about Echidna out of Hesiod and his peers, that it was _really_ hard to stay mad at Ezekiel when Emmie was around.

They had come in about ten minutes after Jake and Cassandra that morning, Emmie talking a mile a minute about time machines, while Ezekiel laughed and made a valiant effort to answer the dozens of questions that were fired at him. The sight had made Jake’s heart clench in a number of ways, while Cassandra’s face flitted through at least five different emotions before she settled on a smile. ‘Hey Emmie,’ she said, only glancing at Ezekiel briefly before she looked away. ‘How was the safe house?’

‘It was okay,’ Emmie said, pouting a little and throwing Jake a mournful look. ‘But I had to eat cornflakes for breakfast.’

Despite himself, Jake grinned. ‘That’s rough, that is,’ he said. And then, noticing the not-so-subtle shove Ezekiel gave his kid: ‘And what did you have for dinner?’

It might have been the matching angelic expressions in front of him, but for some reason, Jake did not think the answer he got was entirely true. However, before he had time to ask further, and before Ezekiel had time to start talking and ruin the fragile momentary balance, Eve walked in, carrying a coffee mug and a businesslike  expression. ‘Morning everybody. Anybody interested in our plan of action for today?’

Jake was. Jake was interested in anything that would keep his mind from spinning downwards again. From the way Cassandra and Ezekiel snapped to attention, they were as well.

‘Very well. Stone, ancient Echidna history. I want all the background information you can find.’

‘Got it.’

‘Jones, surveillance. You’ve got her pictures, use your tracking software to find out where she’s hiding out now. Also I want you to find out if she’s attacked anyone else in the past hundred years or so. Go digging.’

‘Already on it.’

‘Cassandra, standby for any Clippings Book cases. Just because there’s a snake monster on the loose, doesn’t mean we can just let the world implode.’

‘Juppers.’

‘Emmie.’ Here Eve’s expression softened and Jake had to suppress a smile at the way Emmie’s chest puffed up as she eagerly awaited her orders. ‘Jenkins is in the kitchen. I believe he has some chores for you to do.’

‘Yes ma’am!’

Emmie ripped off a salute (an honest to god, almost perfectly executed _salute_ ) and took off into the kitchen, unaware of Eve’s baffled double-take, or the way Jake, Cassandra and Ezekiel all doubled over laughing, all the tension between them momentarily forgotten.

‘I swear I didn’t tell her to do that,’ Ezekiel gasped as Eve fixed him with her best glare. The fact that she obviously was trying to contain her laughter as well, however, did make it slightly less effective. ‘Baird, honest, I didn’t.’

‘You know, I _want_ to believe you,’ Eve said, shaking her head and still fighting a grin, ‘I’m just not so sure if I do. Now. All of you, I believe it’s time to get to work.’

To work they got. After Jake had made another Library run to scrounge up any volumes that looked like they might contain some information, and after Ezekiel had set up something that looked like he was building his own private and not-entirely-legal NSA outpost, they settled down to work in a rare and focused silence.

And Jake soon discovered the second bitch of the thing, which was that it was really easy to become mad at Ezekiel again when Emmie _wasn’t_ around. Because now that Emmie had left the Annex, tension seeped back into the air. This was partly due to the silence; in the four years they had been working together, they had rarely worked as quietly as they did now. There was always someone muttering to themselves, commenting on something interesting or funny they had found while researching, taking a break from work just to chat about whatever or, in some cases when the research was getting really boring and no one was really feeling like working, Ezekiel would play DJ on his laptop.

But now, there was quiet, heavy and tense and suffocating. Which was already enough for Jake to start throwing Ezekiel dark looks from over the pile of ancient Greek texts notebooks and dictionaries he had amassed on his desk, but the fact that Cassandra, who was _not_ good at being on standby with no actual work to do, had thrown herself into solving some kind of ancient unsolvable math problem also did not help. Because solving the math problem involved a lot of silent hand waving, a lot of fidgeting and in general a lot of _not sitting still_ , so much so that Jake almost snapped at her to cut it out. Almost, because just before he opened his mouth, he remembered how he had found her last night, when she _had_ been standing still.

He snapped his mouth shut again and glared at Ezekiel a little harder instead. Not that this had much of an effect, because Ezekiel was hiding himself behind his various screens, trying his hardest to avoid any and all eye contact. Which was another thing that pissed Jake off.

And seriously, bless Jenkins and his uncanny timing abilities. Because every time, just before everything could boil over and the tension in the Annex reached its breaking point, Emmie would come bouncing in with the biggest grin on her face, followed at a slightly more sedate pace by Jenkins, and the three Librarians and their Guardian would be treated to the story of Emmie Jones Pets Schrodinger’s Cat.

Or Emmie Jones Feeds A Phoenix.

Or Emmie Jones Reshelves A Whole Bookshelf In The Natural History Wing _All By Herself._ For some reason, she got _really_ excited about that one and Jake didn’t even bother suppressing the temporary relief he felt as he listened to her rambling on, the knot in his chest unwinding again in the face of Emmie’s gleeful enthusiasm.

Jake did not stop to think about how much that enthusiasm made her look like her dad. Not right now, anyway. Not that he had the time, because as soon as Jenkins had whisked Emmie away again to show her the Hall of Magic Mirrors, Eve got up from her desk. ‘Okay, Jones and Stone. Status report. Jones first.’

Ezekiel tore his gaze away from the doorway through which his kid had just disappeared and sighed, leaning back in his chair and scrubbing his face with his hands. ‘I got nothing. She got caught on a couple of cameras outside of the apartment in London, right after Kiwi… Emmie stuck a knife into her, but after that, she’s gone. Got no visual on her anywhere, and without a city or at least a country to narrow it down, I can’t really dig any deeper than I’m doing now.’

Eve nodded, although her frown indicated she was less than pleased with this information. As was Ezekiel himself, if the pinched eyes and tight lips were anything to go by. ‘And did you find anything else? About what she’s been up to recently?’

‘Other than the fact that she was definitely Serpent Brotherhood, nothing,’ Ezekiel said, turning his laptop around so they could all see a picture of a tall, dark-haired woman with piercing eyes walking a couple of paces behind DuLaque. ‘This was a couple of days before DuLaque showed up in here and… uhm. Well. You know.’

‘Killed me four times over,’ Eve said dryly. ‘Yeah, I remember that.’

‘Thing is,’ Ezekiel continued, ‘the Serpent Brotherhood is not exactly a web-based organization. I’ve got no clue when she joined them, or what she was up to before that. If that’s written down somewhere, it’s not somewhere I can find it.’

‘Well, it was worth a try,’ Eve said with a shrug. Cassandra, however, kept staring at the picture on the screen, frowning like she had done while working the complicated math problem earlier.

‘Cass?’ Ezekiel asked, looking at her a little unsure. ‘You got anything?’

Cassandra shook her head. ‘No, I… I don’t think so. I just… thought she looked familiar, that’s all.’

Jake got up from his desk as well to take a closer look. There _was_ something about the woman on the screen that looked familiar, but he would be damned if he could put his finger on it.

‘That’s what I thought too,’ Ezekiel said, before turning the laptop screen around again. ‘But I’m pretty sure we’ve never met her before. I mean, pretty sure we’d remember a snake monster that tried to eat us, right?’

‘I don’t know, after a while all the monsters trying to eat us kind of blur into each other,’ Eve muttered. ‘But that might be something. Jones, does your facial recognition software have a ‘this face looks like another face’ setting? If not, then you’d better make one. Stone, your turn.’

‘Didn’t find much either,’ Jake said, turning back to look at his desk. ‘What I told you yesterday is pretty much all there is as far as her background goes. Although there’s one thing that might be useful.’

He rifled through the mass of papers for a moment until he found the notebook he was looking for. ‘Turns out that Echidna liked to prey on people, but she’s not always lucky.’

Eve frowned. ‘Meaning?’

‘There are several accounts of people who met her, were jumped by her and still didn’t end up as snake feed,’ Jake said. ‘Apparently that’s another reason she switched to eating animals. They’re less likely to fight back.’

Now Eve made her way over to Jake’s desk to look at the notes herself. ‘But you said she can’t be killed.’

‘She can’t be killed,’ Jake said, ‘but apparently, with enough skill and enough dumb luck, she can be beaten. As long as she hasn’t bit you, you can at least try to land a couple of punches and get the hell out of her way.’

‘She bites?’ Eve asked, looking up from Jake’s notebook with a frown.

Jake nodded. ‘Echidna’s Greek for ‘she-viper’, so yeah. She bites and it ain’t pretty when she does. She’s got a venom that knocks you out in seconds and kills you in a couple of minutes.’

‘Great,’ Ezekiel said, rolling his eyes from behind his desk. ‘So if it comes to anything _fist-fighty,_ cowboy, I trust you’re gonna volunteer?’

‘Sure, no problem,’ Jake said with a glare. ‘Wouldn’t want your little sticky fingers to get hurt now, would we?’

He could see Cassandra wince at his tone, but by now, it was too late to be holding back. The pot was boiling over again, and Jenkins and Emmie were nowhere to be seen. It was time to let it out.

Before Ezekiel could formulate a cutting reply that most definitely included the word _mate,_ however, Eve spoke up. ‘Okay, that’s it. Both of you, go outside. Now.’

Met with two equally confused yet hostile expressions, she continued: ‘Guys, all the glaring and the scowling in the world isn’t going to solve things. Go outside, yell at each other, punch each other if you have to, but don’t come back before you’ve both settled down.’

\---

Ezekiel knew he shouldn’t have made that _fist-fighty_ comment. He should have kept his mouth shut, kept his head down, and tried to get through the day with the minimum of fuss. But he had been sick and tired of the looks Jake had been throwing him all morning, the enduring silence had got on his nerves even worse and at when Jake had started reminding him _again_ just how close he had come to losing his kid, Ezekiel had just… snapped.

Maybe it was for the better, though, he thought as he and Jake made their way through the hallway. Maybe Eve was right. Maybe if he’d let Jake shout at him a little, then the cowboy could get whatever was eating him out of his system and the three of them could start trying getting back to normal again.

That did not mean he was looking forward to it, though. Mentally steeling himself for whatever Jake might be ready to hurl at him, he followed Jake out of the front door and around the massive concrete abutment that formed the entrance to the Annex, until they were both standing at the riverside.

The spring air was warm around them, filled with a million tiny sounds of buzzing insects, rustling trees and the gentle lapping of water. High up in the bright blue sky, a raptor was circling, looking for something to eat, while on the other side of the river, a heron was doing the same. A breeze went by, smelling green and fresh, and ruffled through Ezekiel’s hair. It was a calm, quiet, _peaceful_ picture.

Until Ezekiel took a deep breath and looked at Jake’s face. And got the wind knocked out of him again almost immediately, because instead of the anger he had expected, Jake looked. Sad. Tired. _Hurt._

Ezekiel had not seen that coming, although perhaps he should have. He also didn’t really know how to deal with this; he could deal with a shouting cowboy well enough, that was just a matter of shouting back until they both ran out of breath. A _sad_ cowboy, however, that was different. That was _worse._

‘Would you have told us?’ Jake asked quietly, so quietly that Ezekiel had to strain to hear him over the sound of the river flowing by. ‘If… if Echidna hadn’t come by and you hadn’t had to… to take her here, would you? Have told us?’

It was a fair enough question, and Ezekiel could already tell that Jake was not going to like the answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said softly, and _there_ was the flash of anger he’d been waiting for. ‘I… not anytime soon, I think. Not until she was older.’

Ezekiel could see the thunderclouds gathering in Jake’s eyes again, replacing the hurt, which was good. He could deal with thunderclouds.

‘It’s not that I didn’t want to,’ he continued, looking away from Jake’s face to focus on the heron on the other side of the river. ‘Because I did. I really, _really_ wanted to tell you guys about her, it’s just… I also wanted to keep her safe.’

The heron was standing still. Ezekiel didn’t know if it was hunting or just enjoying the sunlight.

‘I get that,’ Jake said slowly, a dark undertone now creeping into his voice. ‘But what I’m hearing is, that you didn’t trust us to keep her safe. Or to work something out to keep her out of harm’s way.’

‘Yeah, because our plans to keep people safe always work out just the way we want them to,’ Ezekiel said, leaving the heron for what it was and turning back to Jake. ‘And we’ve _never_ seen someone get hurt by magic because that _never_ happens. _Especially_ not on accident.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Jake grumbled, and Ezekiel almost laughed. ‘Not the _point_? _’_

‘No!’

‘Then enlighten me, cowboy, what _is_ your point?’

‘The point is,’ Jake said, face reddening and nostrils flaring, properly fired up now, ‘the point is that we could’ve worked something out! You know, let Jenkins babysit her when we’re on a mission, or, or make sure that there’s always one of us to stay home with her after school. Just something so that you didn’t have to let her live on her own at the other side of the fucking world with the most ridiculous fucking nanny I’ve ever heard!’

For a moment, the only sound was the gleeful scream of the raptor tearing through the sky. Other than that, utter silence.

‘You think I _liked_ it that way?’ Ezekiel asked, once he had his breath back and once the feeling of being stabbed in the stomach with an ice pick had abated a little. ‘You think I _liked_ not having her here, or keeping her a secret? Which, for the record, _Dr. Thompson,_ is a pretty weird thing for you to get all butthurt about!’

Yes, it was a low blow, but Jake’s comment had _hurt._ Not in the least because, if Ezekiel was honest with himself, abandoning Kiwi was exactly what he had been doing. And he did _not_ appreciate Jake grabbing hold of that fact and throwing it back into his face like that.

‘Don’t matter what you like or what you don’t like,’ Jake growled. ‘What matters is, you left her on her own and you lied to us. And _don’t_ tell me that I don’t have a right to be upset with that, because at least Dr. Thompson wasn’t the reason I spent all of last night tryin’ to get Cassie to stop crying.’

Oh shit. Making Cassandra cry was one of the worst offenses in Jake’s book, right above misquoting Shakespeare. To be fair, in Ezekiel’s book, making Cassandra cry was right above putting nice, shiny gold coins in a museum where there’d be no one to love them like they deserved. _Not_ that he’d tell Jake that.

‘Are you sure that that’s all there is to it?’ Ezekiel asked instead, trying to keep his voice as level as possible. He didn’t like the way Jake’s anger was getting to him: it was setting up his hackles and triggering all his defense systems. He had to get this over with, or any moment now he might say something monumentally stupid.

Jake huffed. ‘You mean there’s something else?’

‘Might be,’ Ezekiel sneered. ‘Might be that you’re just being a self-righteous ass, in which case, nothing new there. Or it might be that you’re just jealous. Tell me, Stone, is this just about me not telling you there’s a kid, or about me having a kid at all?’

Too late.

‘I’m jealous?’ Jake asked, voice rising and ending in an incredulous laugh. ‘You think I’m _jealous_? _’_

Ezekiel shrugged. ‘Don’t know. You seem awfully cozy with her, for some reason. Or is that not why I got a full hour infomercial about the Pancakes From Uncle Jake last night?’

‘You worried I’m tryin’ to steal your kid?’ Jake asked with an evil grin, and Ezekiel breathed out again. Steering the conversation towards Kiwi turned out to be having the desired effect, making Jake look a little less murderous. Just a little. ‘Yeah, I’m bein’ nice to her, I like her, she’s a sweet kid. Not her fault that her dad’s a punk ass,’ Jake continued, grin fading away and making way for a glare again.

_Punk ass_. Ezekiel tried not to feel too relieved, but he could work with _punk ass._ He’d been called worse. Even by Jake himself, and look where the two of them had gotten from there.

He grinned. _Not_ the cocky, self-assured grin that always made Jake see red, but an open, conspiratorial grin that invited the person it was aimed at to join in. ‘If you wanna use words to hit me, Stone, you gotta try a good deal harder than that.’

Jake shook his head, but there was a lightness coming back into those blue eyes that told Ezekiel that the worst of the storm might be about to pass. ‘Fuck you, Jones.’

Unless it was just the eye of the hurricane, of course. Didn’t matter for now. All that mattered was that Jake shook his head again and, after one last glare, turned on his heel and stalked back towards the Annex door. Leaving Ezekiel standing alone by the waterside, carefully counting the breaths that went in and out and trying to stop his heart from rabbiting its way out of his chest.

For all that he had worried, the first Stone Shout Out had gone better than he ever had dared to hope. It probably wouldn’t be the last, but right now? He would take what he could get and bask for a moment in the knowledge that things between them were apparently not as broken as he had feared.

_\---_

Later, much later in fact, he would remember that moment. And maybe be a little pissed off that the universe did not see fit to, you know, let him get his bearings for a moment. Let him breathe in peace. Give a guy some time to calm down properly.

Because while he was still standing there, staring after a cowboy who had already vanished, there was a rustle in the bushes behind him, followed the sound of footsteps coming closer.

‘Ezzzzekiel Jonessss,’ said a voice, and it was a voice that slithered all the way down Ezekiel’s spine. ‘Ssssuch a pleassssure to finally meet you.’


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Ezzzzekiel Jonessss. Ssssuch a pleassssure to finally meet you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this entire week has been one big angst fest so far, here! Have some Ezekiel whump with all the other pain! No need to thank me either, but come yell at me on [Tumblr](http://hedgehog-o-brien.tumblr.com/), I'm here if you want someone to scream at.

‘Ezzzzekiel Jonessss. Ssssuch a pleassssure to finally meet you.’

Ezekiel did not turn around immediately. Instead he allowed himself one moment to breathe out, another moment to quietly go  _oh fucking shit we’re doing this now_ and a third moment to try and remember everything that Jake had told him about Echidna thus far.  _Then_ he turned around.

She stood at the edge of the clearing, taller than Ezekiel thought she’d be from the pictures and looking infinitely more vicious. There was absolutely no mistaking her for a normal human being with an unfortunate lisp anymore: perhaps it was the way her hair seemed to twist and tangle itself around her head, the dark locks moving despite the fact that there was no wind. Or perhaps it was the way her skin moved, _shifted_ while Ezekiel watched in nauseated horror and became scales, rusty-brown scales with a jet-black zigzag pattern running up her legs and across her arms. Both were good, solid clues that something might not be right here, but the thing that really set Ezekiel’s alarm bells clanging, much as it had done with Kiwi a couple of days before, was her eyes. 

First of all, her pupils were slits, yes. But they were also huge, larger than any human’s eyes had a right to be, and apart from the pupil, they were a solid and very unnerving shade of gold. Ezekiel usually really liked the color of gold, but eyes were  _not_ supposed to look like that.

‘Echidna,’ he said with an easy smile, easier and more confident than he actually felt. ‘Sorry, did I pronounce that right? Or should I just call you Andi instead?’

Echidna smiled as well, and oh look, there were the fangs.  _Dripping_ fangs, Ezekiel noticed, finding himself unable to stop staring at them. Oh boy.

‘Andi’ssss fine,’ Echidna said with a shrug as she stepped out of the shrubbery and on to the clearing. ‘Ssssince you won’t ssssay it for long.’

G reat. Ezekiel was stuck on his own, unarmed, against a smack-talking snake.  _Awesome._

‘You scared the hell out of my kid, Andi,’ he said, setting a careful step to the side so that he was at least one foot closer to the Annex door. And less likely to fall backwards into the river if and when Echidna decided to attack. That would be his strategy, he decided. Dodge, duck, weave, try to get to the door. He would have to be very lucky, but then again, up until now, he always _had_ been very lucky. Stone might have gone for the hands-on approach and try to put up a fight, but the get-out-now strategy had never failed Ezekiel so far; no sense in changing tactics now.

Echidna shrugged again as she took a step to the side as well, effectively blocking Ezekiel’s intended escape route. Damn. ‘I know. Sssso ssssorry about that,’ she said. Then her eyes narrowed, her lip curled up to once again reveal the fangs and she sneered: ‘But at leasssst  _sssshe_ lived to tell the tale.  Unlike the child you sssstabbed in the back, you sssson of a bitch.’

And with that, she lunged. Ezekiel, who had been watching her like a hawk, was only just in time to let himself drop down to the grass and roll out of her way. He  hunched further down as he  felt her go past and looked around to see her sliding gracefully onto the ground behind him in a way that human bodies are  _not_ supposed to do. He drew himself up,  slowly  crouching backwards until he was back on track for the door again, carefully watching Echidna’s every movement. She drew herself up as well, but not in the way Ezekiel did;  _coiled_ would be the right word for the way she held herself upright. Her legs were curled behind her, ready to launch her towards Ezekiel, while her entire body seemed to tense in on itself, prepared to strike again.

Ezekiel crawled back another foot, never taking his eyes of the snake woman in front of him, while his mind was racing. The fact that she was apparently here on some sort of revenge mission was unexpected, to say the least, but this  information  took a backseat to the more immediate, pressing issue at hand.  Which was the fact that Echidna was  much,  _much_ faster than Ezekiel had anticipated:  t hat first jump had been like a lightning strike, a flash that was moving  way  too fast for his eyes to follow. If she kept this up, Ezekiel might have to revise his dodging strategy  very soon .

This  idea gained merit  almost immediately when  Echidna struck again, her entire body launching itself off the ground and onto the place where Ezekiel would have been if he had been just a little less alert. This time,  he felt smooth cold scales slid e against his skin as he moved and although a dull  _thud_ indicated that she had hit the concrete bridge abutment behind him, Ezekiel did not think that would stop her in the slightest. If Echidna was a goddess, as Jake has said, a simple crash into concrete probably wouldn’t do much harm.

Although a couple of strategically placed punches might. Ezekiel didn’t do punchy, as a rule, but as he got himself ready to duck out of Echidna’s way again, trying to anticipate the direction she would strike next, he started to think he might have no other choice here. 

Echidna sat up, fixating Ezekiel with a glare that immediately reminded him of Kiwi’s meerkat metaphor. There was a snake in front of him, and he was skittering around like a frightened little rodent, trying to run for its burrow, while everybody who was watching them would already know that he’d never make it.

Another long stare, another sneering hiss and Echidna was off again, using the abutment to push herself off. For the third time, Ezekiel managed to jump out of the way before she hit him, but only just. This time, the force of her strike made him fall backwards onto the grass, with no way to get up quickly enough when she came for him again.

He might have to get punchy after all. 

_With enough skill and enough dumb luck, she can be beaten,_ Jake’s voice in his head reminded him. Ezekiel had always had plenty of dumb luck, that wasn’t the problem. And give him a crowbar or a baseball bat, and he had some skill as well, drilled into him over and over and  _over_ again by Colonel Eve Baird herself and subsequently practiced about a gazillion times on all the rage people he could wish for.

But now he had nothing but his fists. As he moved backwards another two feet, in the most ungraceful upside-down shimmy ever, he considered his options. There weren’t that many.

Meanwhile, Echidna was crouching a few feet away, one foot already poised behind the other for the next attack. ‘You know, I’m a little dissssappointed in you, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss,’ she said, giving him a smile that did nothing but show off her needle-sharp fangs. They were dripping green liquid now, Ezekiel noticed absentmindedly.  That was probably not good .

‘Disappointed, huh?’ he said, using the smack talk break to crawl backwards another foot. ‘Why’s that?’

‘I thought you’d sssstop and fight,’ Echidna said, stalking after Ezekiel on her hands and knees, who was still inching away from her as far as he could. ‘I thought you’d sssstand up for your kid. Issssn’t that what parentssss do?’

It was, but most parents also preferred to stay alive. Fortunately, the fact that Echidna was now making small talk again meant that Ezekiel saw his chance to try and do both. While Echidna was distracting herself with her premature gloating, he kept moving backwards, drawing his legs up under him and bringing his torso forward. All while still looking properly frightened so she wouldn’t see his move coming.

Balancing himself for a moment, h e pounced. And Echidna  _didn’t_ see it coming, which meant  Ezekiel could ram his knee into her stomach and wrap a hand around her neck as they both toppled towards the ground, Ezekiel landing heavily on top of her. He tried slamming his other hand to the side of her head, hoping snake monsters could be knocked unconscious that way, but Echidna was already writhing underneath him, body twisting and turning in loops much like a snake’s, and it took all Ezekiel had to just keep her pinned down on the grass  while h e kept his hand around her throat, bearing down on her airway and carotid artery with force and hoping it would work.

It didn’t. Right after the point where any normal human would have fallen unconscious, Echidna brought up her knee between Ezekiel’s legs and gripped his shoulders, levering them both of the ground and reversing their position with ease. Ezekiel slammed into the grass, the hard earth unforgiving against his head and back, the heavy weight of Echidna on top of him knocking the wind out of him even further. Now it was his turn to writhe and wriggle, but  as  he was a lot less flexible than a snake creature,  it looked a whole lot less attractive and more importantly, it was a whole lot less effective . All he could do was to try and find some purchase on the scaly skin, some kind of leverage that he could use to get out and get the upper hand again, before…

Before he heard a triumphant hissing noise and looked up to see how  Echidna’s teeth, dripping with venom, glinted in the sunlight.

\---

Eve had been right, Jake mused as he was walking back through the hallway into the Annex. Shouting at Ezekiel  _had_ helped. Not to the point that everything was now magically okay again, of course,  t hey’d need more for that.  T hey  would need time, more talking, maybe even some more shouting. But it was a start. There was still anger, buzzing under his skin, but it wasn’t as all-consuming as it had been before. It was a lot easier now to breathe through it, to keep himself from getting lost inside his own head and to focus back onto the case at hand.

Because Jake and Ezekiel might have their differences. They might have  managed to build a relationship based on continuous bickering and disagreeing. But there were things that they absolutely  _did_ agree on, and that was that any monster who went after a kid, deserved to get its ass kicked seven ways to Sunday. Jake might still be pissed at Ezekiel,  h e might even not want to sleep in the same bed with the guy for a while, not until they sorted things out between the two of them. But there was no question that he wouldn’t fight side by side with Ezekiel to defend his kid. None at all.

Lost in thought like this, he didn’t even notice something was wrong until he had reached the main room of the Annex, where alarms were blaring, Eve was desperately trying to get a visual on the security mirror and Cassandra was doing her best to distract a confused but frightened Emmie. The fact that Cassandra looked equally confused and frightened did not really help, nor did the fact that for some reason, Jenkins was nowhere to be seen.

‘Baird,’ Jake shouted over the blaring of the perimeter alarm. ‘What’s goin’ on?’

Eve looked up, eyes wide with relief as she saw him. ‘Stone, thank god. Please tell me Jones is inside as well.’

Jake shook his head, suddenly feeling cold all over. ‘Nope. Don’t think so, I left him outside to think about… to think.’

Eve swore,  but Jake didn’t hear.  He had already turned around and was running back to the front door as fast he could.

\---

There was something wrong with Ezekiel’s arm. It felt funny. Like it was made of rubber or something, all soft and squishy. And tingly, that too. Tingly. Funny and squishy and tingly and cold. He didn’t think an arm was supposed to feel cold. Because the rest of him wasn’t cold, no. The rest of him was feeling very hot, actually. Why was it so hot? Except his arm because his arm was very cold, but why was his arm cold and the rest of him so hot?

Oh. Now the rest of him was getting colder too. That felt nice. He didn’t like feeling so hot, it’d be nice to cool off a little. Maybe if he moved out of the sun, it would help. He was looking at the sun right now, right there in the sky and the sun was hot, wasn’t it? So if he moved, and got out of the sun, maybe he wouldn’t be so hot anymore. Maybe then he’d cool off even faster.

Moving was a little difficult, however. He tried it, but because his arm had gone all squishy, he couldn’t really  do anything with it. Also his legs were being weird and not moving when he wanted them too. That was annoying. He’d really like to move. He’d really… he’d really like to move and get out of the sun and… get back indoors? Was that something he wanted?

He thought it was. Getting indoors had definitely  been important for some reason, he just didn’t exactly remember why. Maybe because there was no sun there? That might be it, he thought, as he blinked up again. Because there the sun was, big mean bastard beating down on him and making him all hot and sweaty and making it so that he couldn’t see anything clearly because everything was getting too bright to look at.

He closed his eyes. That was better.

Now if only he could close his ears too. Because there were some  _very_ loud noises happening around him, someone hissing and someone swearing and someone else shouting… it was annoying. It hurt his head even worse than the sunlight had.

Maybe if he fell asleep, then he wouldn’t hear the noises anymore. And he also wouldn’t feel so cold. Ye ah , he was feeling cold now. Not hot anymore. Just cold.  _Freezing_ cold, he didn’t remember ever being so cold. Why couldn’t he be hot again? Hot had been nice. He’d been warm when he was hot. Not cold like this, but nice and warm and toasty. Maybe if he fell asleep, he wouldn’t feel the cold so bad. It would be really easy to fall asleep, actually. It was staying awake that was the problem here. Staying awake and breathing. Breathing was a little difficult too, but that was okay. That was just because he wanted to sleep, and you never needed that much breath when you were asleep. Or did you? He didn’t really know  and it probably wasn’t all that important anyway .

So yeah, that’s what he would do. He’d let himself fall asleep and then, when he woke up, hopefully his arm would be normal again and he wouldn’t be so cold anymore. 

If only those people would stop shouting at him, then he could fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who want a visual: Echidna's appearance is based on the horned viper, or _[vipera ammodytes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipera_ammodytes)_.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Emmie is a bit of a drama queen (which, given that her last name is Jones, is not surprising), Ezekiel isn't feeling so good and finally, we get some long overdue H/C from the OT3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a little later than usual, but on the plus side, it's also a little longer than usual. And by 'a little', I mean 'almost twice as'. So enjoy!

Her dad was dead.

Emmie knew it. She’d seen it, she had been there, watching in horror how Uncle Jake had carried her dad inside and how he had looked all wrong, how his face had gone all grey and how his eyes were closed and how he wasn’t breathing anymore. She had seen how Uncle Jake slowly, carefully, put her dad down on the floor and how Cassandra rushed over, going ‘no no no no no no no’ in an increasingly high tone of voice. Then her dad’s head had fallen to the side and he was _still_ not breathing and he _still_ was the wrong color and Uncle Jake had bellowed for Mister Jenkins to get his ass in here and Cassandra had been crying and then Colonel Eve had come back and told Emmie to go to the kitchen and stay there in a tone that brooked no argument.

So now Emmie was sitting hunched on the floor against the kitchen counter and her dad was dead.

The weird thing was that Emmie wasn’t even crying. She knew she was supposed to cry, but instead she was just sitting there, staring at the kitchen floor without seeing anything. Her eyes felt hot and itchy and her chest hurt and she was gripping at her knees so tight that her nails were digging into her skin through her jeans, but she wasn’t crying. Perhaps some things were so bad that you couldn’t even cry about it.

Her dad was dead.

The thought kept going around and around in her head, thumping a rhythm with heavy boots. _Dad was dead. Dad was dead. Dad was dead. Dad was dead._ And the longer the thought kept going round and round, the more Emmie’s chest hurt and the harder it got to keep breathing through the black pit of guilt and despair that was trying to suck her in.

Because of course it was all Emmie’s fault. She should have lied to Andi, should have told her that she’d never heard of Ezekiel Jones, that Poppins was her dad because Poppins had a gun and he would have just _shot_ Andi if she had tried to attack him. Emmie’s dad didn’t have a gun. He didn’t even like to fight, he always told Emmie that the world was made of people who knew how to fight, and people who knew how to run, and that you should always stay in your lane.

Because of Emmie, her dad hadn’t stayed in his lane this time. And now he was dead.

\---

Pain. That was the first thing he noticed, the _only_ thing he noticed. Searing, agonizing pain every which way his mind went, exploding in white-hot tongues of fire under his skin when he tried to move. Even opening his eyes felt like someone was digging a rusty spoon into his eye sockets, a sharp serrated edge scraping along the back of his eyeballs.

If this was his reward for trying to wake up, he decided, it wasn’t worth it. So instead of trying further, he gave in and surrendered himself back into the darkness again. There, it was quiet. Peaceful. If he could just stay afloat in the dark for a while, he could pretend that the pain did not belong to him, that his body and himself were two different and unconnected entities. He even could try and fold in on himself, make himself small and let all the pain pass him by, so that it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

It almost worked, too. The problem was, that once he was aware of the pain, it was kind of hard to _stop_ being aware of it. Even far away in the darkness he could still feel it, _hear_ it even. Calling him, taunting him, daring him to come back and face it like a man.

Suddenly, however, he could hear other voices in the distance. And these were voices he knew, although whose voices they were exactly was a bit difficult to remember. But if these voices were here, then things were okay. These were voices he could trust.

A moment later, he discovered that the voices had hands, too. One voice, the one that was low and warm and a bit rough, like a flannel comforter, had very strong hands that held him tight and the other voice, the one that was light and sweet like strawberry ice cream, had small, soft hands that held his head. Through the pain, he felt something being poured into his mouth, little by little so that he wouldn’t choke. Whatever it was, it was warm and cloyingly sweet and left a bitter taste as it went down his throat. He swallowed convulsively, trying to get rid of the taste, but then the strawberry voice told him that it was okay and the flannel voice agreed, telling him that he should just go back to sleep now.

So he did.

\---

Emmie didn’t know how long she’d been sitting on the kitchen floor when Uncle Jake came in. And Emmie liked Uncle Jake, she did, and not just because of the pancakes, but right now? She really, _really_ wished that he would go away. Because he was only going to tell her what she already knew, that her dad was dead and then she _would_ start to cry, she could feel it, and she didn’t want to cry and especially not in front of someone who was not her dad.

‘You know,’ Uncle Jake said, standing near the doorway but not coming any closer, for which Emmie was grateful. ‘I think a chair’s more comfortable than the floor.’

That made no sense. Uncle Jake should not be making jokes right now. He should not be standing there, looking down at her with a soft smile and a twinkle in his eye like everything was okay and like Emmie’s dad hadn’t just died. He should be looking at her all sad and serious and say things like ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘we couldn’t help him anymore’ and more things like that, the same things the doctors had told her dad about her mom a long, long time ago.

Uncle Jake didn’t even look upset. He looked a little worried, that was true, but as he stepped into the kitchen, he sat down on a chair and pulled one out for Emmie as well. ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna tell you what happened, and then when Jenkins and Cassie are done with him, you can go and see your dad. Okay?’

He still hadn’t said it. He still hadn’t said her dad was dead. So Emmie swallowed and decided to bite the bullet herself. ‘Is he… dad, is he…’

She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even think it anymore, not if she didn’t want to cry and she _didn’t_ want to cry.

But Uncle Jake shook his head and looked at her and then quickly got out of his chair to sit down next to her on the floor. ‘ _No_ ,’ he said, so forcefully that Emmie had no choice but to listen to him, even if it sounded absolutely ridiculous. He was wrong, he had to be. He was either wrong or lying, because Emmie _knew_ her dad was dead, but Uncle Jake was still looking at her, wide-eyed and shaking his head as he told her: ‘Jesus kid, _no_ , he’s not dead. He’s… well, he’s not exactly okay either, but I promise you he’s not dead.’

There was a long moment in which nothing moved. _Then_ Emmie started to cry.

\---

The second time he woke up, he was still floating in a warm red cloud of pain. It was slightly less all-consuming than before, and therefore it was a little easier to figure out that he was lying in a bed. A warm, comfortable bed, which was good. Also good was the fact that he was not alone: he could hear the strawberry voice ( _Cassandra_ was a thought that darted by, too fast to grab a proper hold of) was with him. She was talking to him, that much he could make out, but listening to what she was saying, was beyond him.

Listening hurt. Opening his eyes still hurt. Even breathing felt like his chest was slowly being compressed by iron hoops straining against his ribs, tightening too much and releasing too little to let the air in and out properly.

He shifted a little, trying to get the hoops to loosen up, and was rewarded immediately by a fresh wave of agony crashing over him. In the distance, he could hear screaming before someone else called his name, someone with a voice heavy and strong like sturdy oak furniture. That was a voice he should listen too. That voice was _important._

The screaming stopped. And the voice of oak told him that _that’s good, that’s very good, Mr. Jones, if now you would just lie still then everything will be alright._

So he kept still, breathing slowly in and out against the iron hoops. Now the strawberry voice was back again as well, and her hands were stroking through his hair. Cool hands, soft hands, nice hands carding through his hair, soothing and calming as she told him the same things as the voice of oak had done. That it was okay. That he should lie still, don’t try to move. That everything would be okay, she promised, he just had to sleep a little longer.

So when he felt her hands cradling his head and lifting it up and felt the hands of the voice of oak holding a cup to his mouth, the cloying sweetness filling his nose again before he tasted it, he didn’t protest. Just swallowed it down and waited for the darkness to come and claim him again.

\---

‘He promised,’ Emmie said thickly, voice muffled by Jake’s shirt. Jake’s now thoroughly _wet_ shirt. ‘I asked him again this morning, and he promised.’

Jake squeezed her a little tighter as the last of Emmie’s tears made their way down her cheeks. ‘What’d he promise, darlin’?’ he asked, although he could guess. It wasn’t like Ezekiel to make promises like that, but in this case, Jake could understand why he might have made an exception.

‘He promised he wouldn’t be like Mufasa,’ Emmie said. Jake’s baffled silence must have spoken volumes, because she continued: ‘Like in the Lion King except I was Simba and Andi was the hyenas and dad said last night that he was Mufasa except then I said that the hyenas kill Mufasa and then dad said that that wasn’t going to happen to him.’

Okay, so maybe Jake could _not_ have guessed. Leave it to Ezekiel to come up with ridiculous Disney metaphors that would immediately bite him in the ass. And also leave it to Ezekiel to cast himself in the role of one of the wisest, most powerful, most _regal_ characters in the entire Disney canon. The fucking _punk._

‘Your dad was right,’ Jake said after a minute in which he valiantly tried to swallow a burst of hysterical laughter. ‘And you know why?’

‘Because Andi didn’t kill him?’ Emmie said, now peeling her face free so she could look up at him.

Jake grinned, looking down at a face that gave the word _tear-streaked_ a whole new meaning. ‘That’s right, she didn’t,’ he said, grinning even wider. ‘But more importantly, it’s because your dad ain’t _Mufasa_. He’d _wish,_ come on, have you seen him? He’s more like Timon and Pumbaa than the king of Pride Rock.’

That made her snigger, and Jake continued: ‘Or like that monkey, what’s his name? The annoying one that goes around hitting everybody with his stick.’

Now Emmie was laughing for real, letting out big whoops of hilarity that made her double over, shaking with the force of both genuine mirth and drunken relief. Jake couldn’t help but start laughing with her, keeping one arm wrapped tight around her shoulders as he let his head fall back against the kitchen cupboard and tried not to think about how close a call this had really been.

\---

The third time he woke up, it was to the sound of Harry and his friends soundly defeating the troll in the Hogwarts dungeons at Halloween. The fact that it was now read out loud in a low, rough, southern voice only added extra atmosphere to the story, which was why Ezekiel kept still and listened for a moment, letting himself drift fully towards the surface before he attempted anything strenuous like opening his eyes.

He still hurt. Everywhere. But that was it, it was just _hurt_ by now. Like his entire body was one big bruise, every inch of him tender and aching. It wasn’t a lot of fun and he was definitely not going to jump out of bed and do cartwheels anytime soon, but at least now, he could hear himself think instead of having his brain being shut out by the roaring agony from before.

And thinking he did. He was in a bed, a bed that was not his own bed, and Jake was with him. Reading him Harry Potter, which was a bit sentimental of him because Ezekiel knew that, given the choice, the cowboy would rather pick something with a bit more class, a bit more bite.

Bite. Something something bite. That might be the reason that through the hurt, his shoulder still felt like it was on fire. He’d been bitten by something, hadn’t he? He very vividly remembered teeth of some kind, so he probably had been bitten.

Jake would probably know. Ezekiel should ask him.

‘I think he’s waking up again,’ said a voice that was definitely not Jake’s, and the reading stopped.

So Cassandra was with him too. That was nice. Although _nice_ was a little too light a word for the sudden warm lightness blooming in Ezekiel’s chest as he felt a large, calloused hand on his cheek, stroking his temple and he heard Jake say: ‘Hey man, it’s about time you came back to us for real.’

Ezekiel groaned. He’d meant to say something, but his throat was parched and his head hurt and speaking was still a step too far. He tried again, but with the same result: a low groan that was unintelligible, even if for someone who spoke nine languages and sixty-four dialects.

There was a muttering next to him, a movement and then his mattress dipped with the weight of someone sitting down as a small hand wrapped itself around his. ‘Ezekiel, if you can hear me,’ Cassandra said, her thumb stroking up and down the back of his hand, ‘squeeze once for no and twice for yes, okay?’

That, Ezekiel could do. Squeeze. Squeeze.

‘Good, that’s good,’ Cassandra said, tightening her grip on his hand in response. ‘Now, can you try and open your eyes?’

It took a monumental effort, but Ezekiel managed to crack one painful eyelid open. Only to shut it again almost immediately as light flooded in, destroying the safe darkness that had become his haven.

He kept still, breathing in and out, letting himself wake up a little further before he tried again. This time, he opened both bleary eyes to the sight of Cassandra looking down on him, big blue eyes shining with relief as she smiled. ‘There you are.’

Ezekiel groaned again. It sounded a little more like words this time, but to his side, he still heard Jake chuckle. ‘Easy there, Jones. Just stick to squeezin’ Cassie’s hand for now, okay?’

Good plan. Squeeze. Squeeze.

‘We’ll get you some water,’ Cassandra said, the hand that was not wrapped around his coming up to gently stroke his hair out of his face. ‘Is it okay if Jake holds you up so you can drink?’

God yes, water. His mouth felt like the Sahara. Squeeze. Squeeze.

One moment later, he felt the mattress dip again as Jake sat down at his head, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders and carefully hoisting him semi-upright so Ezekiel sat slumped like a ragdoll against Jake’s chest. Cassandra had let go of his hand for a moment to pour him a glass of water from a jug on the nightstand next to the bed, which she then held up to his mouth. Cool liquid hit his tongue and he swallowed greedily, every sip reminding him just how thirsty he was.

When Cassandra took the empty glass away, he nearly whined but Jake chuckled again and said: ‘We’ll get you some more later, okay? Now, can you try the talking thing again?’

Ezekiel swallowed. ‘Yeah,’ he croaked through a throat that still felt like wet sand. He swallowed. ‘Yeah, I can… I can talk. Hey.’

‘Hey,’ Cassandra said, taking his hand again even if he didn’t need to communicate via squeezing anymore. ‘Welcome back.’

‘Welcome back, Jones,’ Jake said as he let his arm drop from Ezekiel’s shoulders to wrap it warm and secure around his ribs. ‘How you feelin’?’

Ezekiel swallowed again, because swallowing made talking easier. ‘Like I… lost a fight… with a snake monster. _Badly._ ’

Jake huffed a laugh. ‘I see the sarcasm is still working,’ he muttered, but no amount of dark muttering could conceal the note of relief in his voice. ‘And yeah, about that.’

He shifted, pulling Ezekiel even closer against his chest. The tight grip hurt, even if Ezekiel hadn’t felt like he had just been run over by several consecutive trucks, but he didn’t protest. Mainly because protesting would be too much effort, but also because at the same time, Cassandra moved forward to wrap him up in a hug of her own so that for one glorious moment, Ezekiel found himself caught in the best tug-of-war ever. Closing his eyes again, he mushed his face into Cassandra’s neck, where the warm scent of vanilla almost drowned out the musty smell that told him he’d been in bed for at least a day and probably longer. He wrapped one arm tight around her back and then reached behind him to grab a hold of Jake’s arm with his other hand, digging his fingers into the soft sleeve and the solid muscle underneath. Drowning in warmth like this, Ezekiel got lost so deep in the feeling of _good_ and _safe_ that he almost didn’t hear what Jake said next.

‘Next time I’m shouting at you,’ Jake continued, lips brushing against Ezekiel’s cheek, ‘don’t go and immediately get your ass killed by a man eating snake, okay? Give me some time to be properly angry with ya.’

‘Don’t do that again,’ Cassandra agreed, voice muffled and squeezing him impossibly tight.

‘I won’t,’ Ezekiel murmured back, voice equally muffled by her shoulder. Then, remembering who he was and what his life was like, he amended: ‘I’ll… I’ll try not to. And I’m sorry. I’m… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m…’

He took a deep breath and stopped right before he would get stuck in a litany of sorry’s, but Cassandra still made a warning noise into his hair. ‘I thought I told you not to say that anymore,’ she said, to which Jake started to laugh before he told her that if Jones wanted to start apologizin’, they shouldn’t be the ones to discourage him. That even drew a weak laugh from Ezekiel, who, despite the fact that he still hurt all over, finally felt like he could start to relax for the first time since this whole mess had started.

It took a long moment of the three of them just sitting there, breathing together in a mass of limbs, with hands stroking, voices murmuring and lips brushing in kisses that were barely there but still clearly felt, a long moment in which they did nothing but _be_ together and revel in that fact, but at last, Ezekiel drew back. Or as far back as he could with Jake still plastered against him and Cassandra clinging to his front like a slow loris. It was a good thing they were, though; aside from the nagging pain, Ezekiel was also feeling weak as a newborn kitten and the only thing keeping him upright was the four arms that were still stubbornly refusing to let him go.

‘So what happened?’ he asked, because although some things were coming back (the image of needle sharp snake teeth opening wide above his head, for instance), he was still a little fuzzy on the details.

‘What happened,’ Jake said, voice a little rough as he looked up from where his face had been buried in Ezekiel’s hair, ‘was that you went and nearly got your ass killed by Echidna.’

‘She bit your shoulder,’ Cassandra continued softly, hand reaching out to touch lightly on the part of Ezekiel’s body that was still screaming out in agony whenever he moved. ‘Which was good, and you’ve been really, _really_ lucky because if she had bitten your neck, if she’d hit your, your artery, then… then…’

She didn’t need to finish painting that particular picture. Ezekiel could see it all too well.

‘But you said Echidna’s venom was deadly no matter what,’ he said, turning his head to look at Jake, who nodded. ‘It is,’ he said. ‘Or at least, if it is if you haven’t got Jenkins’ magical viper venom antidote. Potent stuff, knocks you out immediately but it looks like it did the trick, seein’ as we’ve still got ourselves one punk ass thief.’

‘By the way,’ Cassandra said, drawing back a little so Ezekiel could see the glimmer of amusement in her eyes, ‘Jenkins is gonna _kill_ you for using so much of it. He told us it needs a lot of really, _really_ expensive stuff and besides that, he said it takes ages to make.’ She grinned. ‘You’ve already cost him more than half the last jar he had left. So you owe him. Big time.’

That, Ezekiel could not deny. However, despite being warm and comfortable in the middle of the three people sandwich, the pain was becoming stronger and harder to ignore again, so he pressed on with the next question: ‘And what about Echidna?’

‘Oh, she’s here too,’ Cassandra said, grin now turning slightly evil. ‘And she’s _pissed._ Apparently she didn’t take too well to Jake knocking her down, or you know, to Jenkins... Uhm. Nevermind.’

‘Turns out the Library does not just grow kid-sized reading nooks,’ Jake said, ‘but it can grow cellars as well. We’ve uhm. Kept her there. Until you woke up.’

There was something they weren’t telling him, but Ezekiel didn’t care at the moment. The words ‘kid-sized reading nook’ had brought up the most important question of them all: ‘Kiwi?’

Cassandra’s evil grin softened to a warm smile. ‘She’s okay. She’s upstairs in the Annex guest room and she _should_ be asleep. Eve’s with her to make sure of that.’

If Eve was watching his kid, then there was nothing for Ezekiel to worry about, so he nodded. ‘Good,’ he managed, focusing harder and harder to stay on top of the rising fog. ‘That’s… that’s good.’

‘She didn’t take it too well, though, when we brought you in,’ Jake said, sounding a little apologetic before continued in a lighter, more teasing tone: ‘Something about Mufasa?’

Ezekiel merely groaned as Cassandra laughed and Jake chuckled before he pressed a kiss into Ezekiel’s hair. ‘She’s been worried sick about you, Jones. Refused to leave the room until Eve ordered her to go and get some sleep, and even then we almost physically had to drag her out of here.’

‘That’s why Eve went with her, too,’ Cassandra said, still smiling. ‘To make sure she actually went to bed and didn’t sneak back in here after an hour.’

It sounded like Eve already knew Ezekiel’s kid pretty well. So, given the fact that Echidna was safely behind bars, his kid was safe and presumably asleep upstairs and everybody and everything was the way it was supposed to be, Ezekiel decided that that was enough for now.

He slumped against Jake’s chest, eyes falling shut as he felt himself sink back into the familiar red mist, but Jake wasn’t having it. ‘Hey, Jones, come on. Hang on a minute, we’ll get you another dose of Jenkins’ stuff and then you can go back to sleep, okay?’

Going back to sleep sounded good. Ezekiel nodded, then felt the mattress move as Cassandra got up. He opened his eyes again to see her make her way over to a table on the other side of the room, a table that looked like a cross between the weirdest cocktail bar in history and the workbench of a mad scientist. Scooping a dollop of something gooey and golden out of an ornate silver jar, Cassandra picked up a cup, filled it halfway with water, dropped the golden goop in and stirred the mixture until it was dissolved. Next came a squeeze out of a bear-shaped jar that Ezekiel recognized as the cheapest brand of store-bought honey. Stirring the mixture again, she then reached for a vial that contained an unpleasant looking dark liquid and tipped this in as well, wrinkling her nose as it formed a black swirl in the amber liquid.

‘Hair of the dog,’ Jake murmured, shaking his head as well. ‘Cassie, darlin’, I know it ain’t pretty but he’s gonna need it any second now.’

Cassandra nodded, giving the mixture in the cup one last stir before she turned back towards the bed. ‘I know, I know. Here.’

As Jake took the cup from her, the smell of sweetness with a bitter undertone filled the air again. At any other time, Ezekiel might have demanded to know what exactly they were dosing him with, but right now, all he knew was that this was the stuff that had made the pain go away. He felt the cup being raised to his mouth, tasted warm and cloying and sweet and bitter again and then the cup was gone, the pain was going too, Jake was holding him tight and talking to him about god knows what while Cassandra held his hand and stroked his hair.

All good. Ezekiel could go back to sleep like this.

\---

The fourth time he woke up, it was because someone was crawling into his bed, burying themselves under the covers with him and snuggling up against his chest. Ezekiel didn’t move, didn’t react, just smiled quietly in the darkness as he felt a small hand wrap around his own.

He should have known that even Eve Baird would be no match for a determined Kiwi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'magical anti viper venom antidote' is called [Mithridate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridate) and it's a real thing that exists. Jenkins will tell you all about it in the next chapter, but if you want to do some research yourself in the meantime, please be my guest and join me in the obscure research rabbit hole.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get a cranky Jenkins (so things are obviously okay again), some parent/daughter fluff, one important answer and a lot of questions about that answer. Also we end on one of the most cliche sentences in any piece of fiction featuring kids, but hey. You can't have everything.

‘So that’s going to be at _least_ another year before the next jar is ready, that is, if I can even find somewhere to get saffron at a reasonable price in this day and age or, for that matter, somewhere to get enough opium without having to deal with…’

The indignant muttering went on, complaining about idiot Librarians who used invaluable medicine like it was apple juice, young rascal thieves who didn’t have the decency to avoid getting bitten by deadly snake creatures and why was it that just because you were immortal, it meant that you were the one to have to go up to the aforementioned deadly creature to extract the final and vital antidote ingredient, the mutterer would very much like to know. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter if she bites you, you can’t die, now just go and stab the angry snake creature with this needle, there’s a good man.’

All this was accompanied by the sound of a jar opening and closing, the tinkling of a glass vial being picked up and put down again and then, the metallic sound of a spoon stirring something in a silver jar. It was quite a soothing soundtrack to wake up to, Ezekiel thought as he drifted back into consciousness. Not in the least because, if Jenkins was being this cranky, it could only mean that Ezekiel was almost back to his healthy self again.

This was confirmed when he shifted carefully, trying to assess how much pain he was still in. Aside from a slight itchiness under his skin and a soreness in his muscles that reminded him of one of his wilder nights in Bangkok, he felt more or less okay. He shifted again, a little further, and got the same result. No waves of agony, no more feeling like fresh roadkill; it looked like Echidna’s venom was finally wearing off. Which, judging by the rank air that wafted up from under the covers as he moved, was about time.

There was something else under the covers too. Something warm and lumpy and soft and something that was _not_ supposed to be there, although Ezekiel was glad that it was. Cracking one eye open, he blinked down to see sandy brown curls peeking out from under the covers and smiled, slowly moving his hand to smooth them back down.

‘So opium, saffron, frankincense and myrrh, good god, add some gold and we’ve got ourselves an entire Nativity scene in here, anise, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, at least that won’t be a problem and then of course there’s…’ Jenkins went on, oblivious to the amused eye rolling going on in the bed behind him.

‘Mate,’ Ezekiel interrupted the listing of ingredients through a throat that was still raspy but a lot less sandpapery than before, ‘you know you only have to give me a shopping list and I’ll just steal you the more expensive stuff, right? No problem.’ With one hand still in Kiwi’s hair, he managed to turn to his side and face Jenkins, who had stopped mid-mutter and was now regarding him with his usual wary apprehension. Which was only slightly belied by the way his eyes flitted towards the lump in Ezekiel’s bed and the brief smile that crossed his face at the sight.

‘Thank you, Mr. Jones,’ Jenkins said with a curt nod, ‘that would be most helpful. Some of these items are indeed, very expensive and I would hate for the Library’s budget to be thrown in disarray because someone used up all the mithridate.’

Mithridate. Huh. So that was what they were calling ‘Jenkins’ magical anti viper venom’ these days. Ezekiel had never heard of it, but if this was the stuff that had kept him alive, then he would gladly go out and get Jenkins all the replacement ingredients he needed.

‘Although the opium might be a bit of a problem,’ he said, now trying to shift upwards without dislodging or waking up Kiwi. ‘Lot of nasty people in the opium business. Also, you dosed me with _opium_?’

‘Among other things, yes,’ Jenkins replied, quickly making his way over to the bed to wrap a supporting arm around Ezekiel’s back as he sat up. Ezekiel, remembering the unpleasant dark liquid from before and adding that up to Jake’s ‘hair of the dog’ comment and the fact that Jenkins had apparently repeatedly needed to stab Echidna with a needle for some reason, decided not to ask any further.

‘It made you talk funny,’ came a voice from beside him. Ezekiel looked down to see a pair of brown eyes glinting with amused mischief peer up at him from under the covers.

‘Oh really,’ he said, aiming for stern but failing miserably. A vigorous nod and an even more mischievous grin were all the answer he needed, even before Jenkins cleared his throat and said with an aloofness that fooled nobody: ‘Ah yes. I do believe Mr. Stone and Miss Cillian have some video footage of you getting a little more… well, _loquacious_ over the past few hours. You might want to ask them about it, I’m sure they’ll be glad to let you see.’

Ezekiel groaned, firmly ignoring the now outright sniggering next to him. ‘Speaking of hours, Jenkins, how long have I been out? Because I smell like a wombat’s backside and _Kiwi stop laughing, you’re not smelling much better._ ’

‘Oh, about thirty-six hours? Give or take,’ Jenkins said with a hum that sounded way too amused for Ezekiel’s liking. ‘I’m afraid it takes a while for Echidna venom to completely leave the system so you will probably still feel it for the next few days. But, seeing as you are no longer either screaming in agony or pointing out tiny blue elephants galloping around the room, I’d say the worst is over.’

Ezekiel agreed. Which was why he finally dragged himself completely upright, got himself and Kiwi out of bed and wobbled them both out of the room and into the Annex, looking for, in order, a long overdue shower, something to eat and a stern word with Jake and Cassandra about taking advantage of a poor sod fighting off Echidna poisoning.

\---

The hot water was heaven on his aching muscles and crawling skin, although the steam made him a bit woozier than he expected and he had to lean heavily against the cubicle door for a moment before he trusted himself enough to grab a towel without crashing to the floor. Although perhaps, given the fact that he had not eaten anything for a day and a half, that was not so surprising. Which was why, once he had dried off and pulled on a pair of comfy sweatpants and an even comfier hoodie, he made his way to the kitchen where Kiwi was waiting for him, seated at the kitchen table behind a stack of sandwiches.

‘Hey,’ he said, coming up to her to hug her tight for a moment. For all her sniggering and giggling just now, he did remember Jake telling him that _she didn’t take it too well when we brought you in._ With one hand around her scrawny shoulders and one hand in her hair, he pulled her close as she immediately attempted to bury herself inside his hoodie. Kiwi’s scrawny arms went around his waist and closed tight for a moment, damp curls from her own shower tickling against Ezekiel’s chin as he dropped a kiss to her head. ‘You okay, Kiwi?’

‘I thought you were dead,’ came a small voice and Ezekiel tightened his grip for a moment, rubbing her back with one hand while carding through soft curls with the other. ‘I’m okay now but I thought you were dead,’ Kiwi repeated in a muffled voice and yeah, that definitely sounded like _not taking it too well_ to Ezekiel.

‘Well, I’m not,’ he said, drawing back a little and cupping her cheek with one hand to make her look up at him. ‘Kiwi, look at me. Do I look like I’m trampled by wildebeests to you?'

Kiwi wrinkled her nose, but the glimmer of amusement came back into her eyes as she gave him a tiny grin and said: ‘You do a little,’ to which Ezekiel gave her such a mortified gasp and mock offended look that she doubled over laughing.

‘I’m okay, Kiwi,’ he said, pulling her into a hug again after she had settled down. This time she relaxed into his embrace, leaning in against him with a contented smile as he tucked a couple of flyaway curls behind her ear. ‘I’m okay.’

Kiwi held still a moment before she drew back. ‘I’m okay too,’ she said with a firm nod that almost had Ezekiel fooled. ‘But I am hungry.’

‘Me too,’ Ezekiel grinned, stroking her hair one last time before he released her and sat down to focus his attention on the patiently waiting sandwiches.

\---

The next item on Ezekiel’s to do list required both his partners to be present, but unfortunately, when he and Kiwi walked into the Annex, Eve informed them that Jake had gone on a curiously well-timed solo mission to Dubai. It seemed that multiple construction projects were getting done a _little_ too fast, even for Dubai standards.

‘We’re not sure what it is yet,’ Eve told him as Ezekiel glared in the general direction of the Back Door, ‘but since Stone is the one with the most construction experience, we’ve sent him out to do some digging. How are you feeling?’

‘Not too bad,’ Ezekiel said, looking away from the Back Door to see Eve standing next to her desk and watching him with that warm, motherly expression that always made him feel five years old again. It always made him squirm too, so he crossed his arms and leaned back against the edge of his own desk with a cocky grin. ‘I mean, I’m not saying I’m up for another round against the snake monster, but all in all, I’m good.’

Eve nodded, still watching him with those soft eyes that seemed to look right through him. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Because I wasn’t really looking forward to becoming some kind of Guardian godmother yet.’

This was said with a glance at Kiwi, who kept hovering next to Ezekiel until he nudged her to clamber up on to the desk and sit next to him, legs swinging and heels beating a soft rhythm against the wood.

‘I know,’ he said, nudging Kiwi again to cut out the drumming. ‘And speaking of snake monsters, I think I’ve connected a couple of dots. Where’s Cassandra?’

‘Right here,’ came a voice from behind a bookshelf, followed by Cassandra, followed by Ezekiel suddenly having two arms full of floral patterned sweater and a nose full of red curls smelling of vanilla.

‘You’re not supposed to be up yet,’ she told him as she drew back after pressing a kiss to his cheek. ‘Jenkins said you would be asleep for another couple of hours at least, you’re not supposed to be awake.’

‘Yeah, well, I got tired of being in bed,’ Ezekiel replied with a grin before he drew her close again. Cassandra went willingly, tucking her face into the crook of his neck, but immediately stiffened when Ezekiel muttered ‘ _video footage_?’ into her ear.

The shocked, guileless look in those deep blue eyes almost convinced him, if he hadn’t known her as well as he did. ‘We’ll talk about that later,’ he promised with a disapproving look while at the same time, he also took note of the conspiratorial grin that passed between Cassandra and Kiwi. ‘Now, about the dots. You said Echidna’s been here all this time, did you talk to her?’

Eve shook her head, leaning back against her desk in a position to mirror Ezekiel’s, while Cassandra left Ezekiel's side to go and sit next to Kiwi, immediately engaging her in a furious whispering that Ezekiel did not even want to try and follow. ‘Nope,’ Eve said, soft look replaced by a scowl at the uncooperativeness of ancient Greek snake monsters. ‘We tried, but all she did was hiss at us. Stone even tried talking to her in ancient Greek, figuring that was her mother tongue, and she almost broke down the door. She is _not_ a very friendly creature.’

‘Yeah, kind of noticed that when she decided to start snacking on my shoulder,’ Ezekiel said, wincing as, almost as if on command, he felt his shoulder start to throb. ‘But alright. I think I know why she’s here anyway.’

‘You do?’ Cassandra asked, breaking off her conversation with Kiwi to look at him while at the same time Eve asked: ‘Really?’

As he nodded, Ezekiel pretended not to notice how Kiwi suddenly shifted almost imperceptibly closer against him. ‘I do. Really. Or at least, I think so, because it doesn’t really make much sense, but. Uhm. Well, it’s the only thing that _does_ make sense. I think.’

‘Jones, your explanation skills need work,’ Eve said with an impatient glare. ‘What do you think, what are these dots you’re talking about?’

‘Well, one,’ Ezekiel started, holding up his hand to count on his fingers, ‘she is, or at least was, a member of the Serpent Brotherhood. Two, Cassandra said she looked familiar, even though we’ve never met her before. Three, right before she jumped me, she did some smack-talking and she said that I ‘stabbed her child in the back’. Now,’ he said, letting his hand drop to his side again and looking over Kiwi’s head at Cassandra, who looked back at him, eyes wide with dawning comprehension, ‘do we know of any other members of the Serpent Brotherhood that we _did_ come across a couple of times, and who got stabbed in the back in this very Annex?’

One, two, three heartbeats of absolute silence. Then:

‘Oh, _shit,’_ Eve groaned.

‘Oh crap,’ Cassandra agreed.

\---

‘It makes sense,’ Jake said slowly after a long pause when Ezekiel told him about the conclusion he’d come to. ‘And it don’t.’

He had come back about an hour after Ezekiel had come into the Annex, a box of weirdly glowing hard hats under one arm and in his other hand, a wooden figurine of a smiling camel wearing a yellow hat. This was bestowed unto Kiwi, who cheered and flung her arms around Jake's neck while Ezekiel rolled his eyes. ‘You really are trying to steal her, aren’t you?’

‘You know, I think it’s working,’ Jake grinned, looking down at the delighted Kiwi with a fondness that made something inside Ezekiel twist. Whether it was a good twist or a bad twist, he wasn’t sure, which was why he quickly told Kiwi to go and help Jenkins put away the magical hard hats in the Modern Artefacts wing and waited until she was out the door before he brought the conversation back to his earlier revelation.

‘That’s what I said,’ he told Jake after Kiwi had left the Annex. ‘It makes sense, it’s the _only_ thing that makes sense and still, something’s not right.’

‘Startin’ with the fact that they’re not even related, far as I know,’ Jake continued, rifling through the mass of papers and notebooks on his desk before he found the information he was looking for. ‘Look, there’s a Lamia in Greek mythology, her origins are unclear but she’s either the daughter of the king of Egypt and the queen of Libya, or the daughter of Poseidon. There’s no relation to Echidna whatsoever, apart from the fact that they’re both associated with snakes. Besides,’ he continued, now gaining steam under Ezekiel’s incredulous gaze and Eve’s muttering about mythology not _exactly_ being the main focus here, ‘besides, far as we’ve seen, Lamia’s human. _Was_ human and she might’ve been a mean one but she wasn’t exactly a monster.’

A mean one. So that was what Jake called the vicious, katana-wielding creature that had been DuLaque’s second-in-command. But then again, given the fact that Ezekiel had seen the sparks fly every time Jake and Lamia had been in the same room together, perhaps the mild language was not all that surprising.

‘But what if she wasn’t the Lamia from mythology?’ Cassandra asked, mouth quirked upwards as she clearly remembered the same thing Ezekiel did. ‘I mean, like you said, the Lamia we knew was human. What if she was just… named after her?’

Jake caught her amused look, scowled, turned around to find Eve and Ezekiel watching him with the same expression, scowled even harder and then turned towards his desk to grab another notebook. ‘That could be,’ he conceded, ‘but still. If you look at the rest of Echidna’s kids, she doesn’t really fit in. She wasn’t exactly a three-headed hell hound or a huge, fire-breathing lion-goat-snake thing. Lamia was just… normal.’

‘Well, every family has the odd one out,’ Eve said with a shrug. ‘But Stone, interesting as this mythology lesson is, I don’t think that’s the main issue here. The question is, why’s Echidna coming after Jones when he’s not the one who killed Lamia?’

‘But Echidna wouldn’t know that, would she?’ Cassandra said, biting her lip and staring at the floor in front of the Back Door as if she could look into the past. ‘I mean, think about it. The only members of the Serpent Brotherhood that were in here, were Lamia and DuLaque. And then Lamia died and DuLaque disappeared, so it would make sense to assume one of us was responsible.’

She had a point, but still Ezekiel had to argue. ‘No, it doesn’t,’ he said, gesturing with his good arm, the one not attached to a shoulder that violently disagreed with any movement. ‘Why come after me? Stone was the one who kept flirting with her, why not go after him?’

Jake's scowl was now taking up permanent residence on his face. ‘Thanks, Jones.’

So was Ezekiel's grin. ‘Anytime, mate.’

‘Good question, though,’ Eve interrupted and Ezekiel quickly schooled his grin back into an expression more suited to discussing deadly monsters. ‘If no one of the Brotherhood knows what happened in here, why go specifically after Jones? Why not go after all of us?’

‘Well, add that to the list of questions we’re gonna ask if we ever get her to talk,’ Jake muttered. ‘ _After_ we’ve asked her why she’s so hell-bent on revenge at all, since she didn’t move a finger when her other kids got slaughtered.’

He caught Eve’s withering look and defensively raised his hands before he continued: ‘Yes, Baird, I know, but the mythology lesson is kinda important, seein’ as Herakles killed two of her kids, alright, the Hydra and the Nemean Lion, and all he had to worry about was Hera comin’ after his ass. The sphinx, killed by Oedipus, mommy dearest didn’t move.’ He paused and shook his head before he went on: ‘Not that the guy needed any more bad luck, but still. And the chimaera, Bellerophon, again, not a peep. So why’s she trying to murder Jones now, when he didn’t even do anything?’

‘Perhaps Lamia was her favorite?’ Cassandra suggested, watching Jake with that half-amused, half-fond look she always got when he went on a tangent. Ezekiel would find it adorable, if he didn’t strongly suspect that the expression on his own face when looking at the cowboy was exactly the same. ‘Or she’s just fed up with people killing her children, which, you know. I kind of get.’

Ezekiel rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, but before we start empathizing with the snake monster that tried to eat me,’ he said, ‘I’ve got another question: why now? I mean, Lamia died three years ago, why suddenly go on an avenging spree now?’

‘All very good questions, Miss Cillian, Mr. Jones,’ came a voice from the doorway that led to the Library, ‘and I would like to add one of my own, if you do not mind. Have you seen Miss Emmie?’

Ezekiel turned around to see Jenkins standing there, alone, without his newly appointed tiny sidekick, and looking worried. Which was already enough reason for Ezekiel to feel the panic start to rise, even before Jenkins added: ‘She said she’d wait here while I put those hard hats away, before I took her to go and feed Nessie Jr. again.’

In the distance, Ezekiel could hear Eve groan and Jake start to swear as he shook his head, his heart sinking towards his stomach and a cold crawling over his skin that had nothing to do with Echidna’s poison anymore before he swallowed and said: ‘I thought she was with you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to welshstar for getting the plot twist right (although I'm not so sure how happy I should be about that, but hey. Well done.) and thank you, because your message was an enormous help in phrasing the explanation part of this chapter. Also thank you to everybody who's left kudos/comments so far, you have no idea how much this motivates me to get the next chapter out and actually finish this thing. Thank you!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three guesses as to where Emmie Jones is headed...

The one thing that had surprised Emmie a lot about her dad’s team, was how much they _talked._ Even now, when they had apparently found out what was going on, they were still upstairs, still talking and arguing and asking questions when, to Emmie, the solution was so simple that even she could see it.

Which was why she was currently finding her way through the maze of corridors that was the Library basement. It was dank and dark down here, much like Emmie imagined the basement level of an ancient building to be. The only thing missing was the smell of mold and the torches flaring and sputtering in their brackets along the walls, but otherwise, she could very easily imagine herself crawling through the cellars of a decrepit old castle where ghosts and skeletons lurked around every corner, rather than in a Library where there was nothing scarier than Mr. Jenkins. Oh, and all the magical artefacts, of course, but they weren’t _scary._ They were just dangerous, and that was _not_ the same thing.

The harsh blue light of her phone guided her down another narrow hallway, lined with some kind of weird red stone that felt rough and cold under Emmie’s fingers. The floor was made of the same material, and was worn and uneven in places so she walked slowly, careful not to stumble; falling down and twisting her ankle was _not_ part of the plan. The hallway ended at a narrow flight of steep stairs spiraling down into darkness. Emmie barely hesitated before she set foot on the first step and started downwards, the hand that wasn’t holding her phone trailing down the wall for support.

She had called her dad, crying and wailing like a baby. She had wanted to cry _again_ when Uncle Jake had told them about Echidna, and then she had freaked out so completely when her dad was attacked that she had actually convinced herself that he was dead, even though he obviously, _obviously_ wasn’t. All through this adventure, she had behaved like a little kid, like the girls from the books she hated the most, the ones who did nothing but swoon and sigh and be rescued.

Well, Emmie had decided she was done swooning and crying. Andi was here, and her dad had told her he knew _why_ she was here; it was time for Emmie to get out the metaphorical frying pan and get things done while the grownups kept talking.

As she stepped down from the stairs on to what looked and felt like a floor of nothing more than packed dirt, and aimed her phone’s flashlight down a corridor that looked more like a cave than anything else, she could not help but wonder _why_ Andi’s cell was so far down. She knew she was going the right way, but still something felt a little off. When Mister Jenkins or one of the others had gone down to try and talk to Andi, Emmie was pretty sure it had not taken them this long to get to her cell. She had been walking for at least fifteen minutes by now, the way getting harder and darker with every step, almost as if she was being discouraged of going any further.

Emmie’s dad had told her about Ray, and about how Ray always seemed to know what they were doing. How he helped them when they needed it. And it was a nice story, but right now, Emmie didn’t care what Ray thought. Or what he was trying to do. She just kept walking, step by careful step until she reached her goal.

She reached it after another few minutes of turning sharp corners this way and that, the air getting colder and more oppressive as she went, before the corridor in front of her opened up into a large, spacious room that was divided in half by a row of heavy steel bars bolted into the floor and ceiling. In front of the bars, next to where Emmie was standing, was a table with what looked like a first-aid kit, a wash basin with a tap (although how you would get running water down here, Emmie had no clue) and a simple wooden chair.

_Behind_ the bars was a narrow bed, another wash basin, a toilet (so there _was_ running water down here, somehow) and, mounted to the ceiling, three electric heaters giving off enough warmth to dispel the coldness and damp that came from being this deep underground.

The heaters confused Emmie a little, until she saw Andi, curled up on the bed with her face to the wall, unmoving. She was lying directly underneath one of the heaters, her tan skin glowing an eerie red in the warm light. Emmie remembered her numerous visits to the zoo, both with her dad and with Poppins, and how the animals in the reptile house always sat still under the heating lamps in their enclosures. _It’s because they are cold-blooded,_ Poppins had told her. _They can’t keep themselves warm and if they’re not warm, they can’t do anything._

Shuffling closer, Emmie wondered briefly if you really _needed_ an electric heater if you were part snake, part invulnerable monster, or if it was just something nice to have, but then decided that it didn’t matter. Because at that moment, Andi shifted and raised her head, and, without moving any further and without turning around, said: ‘Emmie Jonessss. How nice of you to drop by.’

Emmie stopped in her tracks, seized by a moment of very, _very_ late panic and doubt, before she swallowed and took another step towards the middle of the room, taking care not to come too close to the bars. Instead, she grabbed the back of the chair, dragged it to the center of the room with her and sat down. ‘Hey Andi.’

Andi didn’t move. ‘How’ssss your daddy, Emmie Jonessss?’

Emmie shrugged. ‘He’s okay. His shoulder hurts, though.’

_Now_ Andi sat up, turning around in one fluid motion and fixing Emmie with a golden-eyed stare. ‘Don’t lie to me, Emmie Jonessss,’ she hissed, teeth bared and nostrils flaring, her body tensing in on itself like a snake prepared to strike. ‘Your daddy’ssss not _fine._ Your daddy’ssss _deady.’_

‘That’s terrible,’ Emmie said drily, more confident than she really felt. ‘And I’m not lying. He really is okay.’

More or less, anyway. Emmie had noticed her dad wincing whenever he moved too quickly, or when he moved his arm at all, but still. Compared to the image of her dad not moving _at all,_ lying in bed while his face was almost the same color as the sheets, he really was okay. And Emmie really did not want to think about that image any longer than she had to.

‘How issss he okay?’ Andi asked, slowly drawing herself completely upright and standing up from the bed. ‘No one esssscapes my poisssson, Emmie Jonessss, no one. He is _dead.’_

‘No, he’s not,’ Emmie insisted, not shrinking under Andi’s piercing gaze. ‘Mister Jenkins saved him, he gave him mithridate and then he was okay.’

Andi laughed. Or at least, Emmie thought she did. She made a high, squeaking noise that crawled unpleasantly over Emmie’s skin, eyes closed but her teeth taking on a dull red glow from the heaters overhead. ‘Ssssweetie, all the mithridate in the _world_ cannot ssssave someone from my bite. Galeassss’ medicine is good, but it’ssss not _that_ good. Your daddy sssshould be _dead.’_

‘Well, he is _not,’_ Emmie repeated, firmly ignoring both the crawling across her skin and the churning of her stomach at the thought that her dad should not be alive after all. Because he was okay. He _was._ Mister Jenkins _had_ saved him, with the mithridate, and Andi was lying when she said that that shouldn’t have happened. Wasn’t that wat snakes did? They did, they lied, everybody knew that. That was why you could never trust them in the movies, and that was exactly why Emmie was not going to trust Andi right now.

Because her dad was okay. He was probably going to be super pissed at what she was doing down here, but that didn’t matter. He was okay. And it was time for Emmie to stop answering questions and start asking them. ‘Who’s Lamia?’

Andi opened her eyes again and stopped laughing. If Emmie had not been watching her so intently, she might have missed the expression that flitted across Andi’s face before she gave Emmie a small, cold smile. ‘Who told you about Lamia, Emmie Jonessss?’

Emmie shrugged. ‘They’re talking about her upstairs,’ she said, watching Andi even closer now because under the sudden stillness, a tension was building and it was not the kind of tension that Emmie had seen before. Andi’s eyes had narrowed a little, belying the smile, while her fingers were curling themselves into fists, the skin on her knuckles becoming a yellowish white. Apparently the name _Lamia_ had struck a nerve. ‘They won’t tell me who she is, but she’s important to you. Isn’t she?’

For a long moment, the only sound was the soft buzzing of the electric heaters on the ceiling. Then Andi’s shoulders sagged. Her fists relaxed and she stepped back to sit down on the bed again, landing heavily on the mattress. There, she sat still for a moment before she looked up at Emmie. ‘Did your mother love you, Emmie Jonessss?’ she asked softly and Emmie felt something inside of her give a sickening lurch.

_A worried face, a sad face, but her mom always smiled when she looked at Emmie. Her mom was warm and kind, even if her dads were often loud and cold and angry. Dads came and went, though, but Emmie’s mom was always there. Emmie did not remember much, but she did remember her mom being there, with her smiles, and the soft hands that tucked her into bed, the even softer songs that her mom sung for her when she couldn’t sleep._

She nodded. ‘Yeah. I… I think… yeah.’ She swallowed hard, forcing herself not to dig her fingers into her jeans, the way she usually did when she was reminded of her mom. ‘But she’s dead.’

_A white hallway, a white room and a white bed where her mother who was also white was lying still. A sharp, unpleasant smell hung everywhere and even though Emmie knew her new dad was right beside her, she didn’t see him. She only saw white. And she didn’t hear him talking either, because all she heard was the beeping of the machine by her mother’s bed and then, even louder, the silence when the beeping stopped._

‘I know,’ Andi said, and Emmie did not ask how she knew. Andi seemed to know an awful lot about her, and her dad. And about Mister Jenkins too, although she called him by a weird name. ‘Well, I loved Lamia. Very much. And she’s dead too.’

Yeah, that much Emmie had gathered from the heated discussion upstairs right before she snuck out. ‘You were her mother,’ she said softly, because that much she also understood.

Andi nodded and for one brief second, Emmie actually felt sorry for her. Sitting on a narrow bed, locked up in a small cell with nothing but cheap electric heaters for light and warmth and looking at the packed dirt floor as if she could see someone who had long, long since gone, it was a far cry from the vicious snake creature that had sent Emmie on a panicked dash through the heart of London only a couple of days ago. Now, Andi just looked small and sad.

It only lasted a second though, before Emmie got another vision of her dad, lying motionless and more importantly, breathingless on the floor. As far as Emmie was concerned, they could lock Andi up even deeper underground, _without_ any electric heaters, and then flush the key right through the toilet.

‘What happened to her?’ she asked softly, because she had tried to follow what her dad and Eve and Cassandra had been talking about, but she felt there was still a lot of information missing. Information her dad would not give her, for the completely _unfair_ reason that she was ten years old. She had an inkling though, and if what she thought was right, then all of this was actually pretty easy to solve.

Andi tensed again, wrapping her arms around her knees so she looked like a child, rather than an ancient and powerful monster. ‘Your daddy killed her,’ she said, voice cold and somehow managing to make a sentence without any esses sound like a hiss. ‘Sssshe made ssssome wrong friendssss, sssshe did ssssome sssstupid thingssss but your daddy _murdered_ her when sssshe wassss doing nothing wrong. Sssstabbed her in the back like a _beasssst_.’

That did not sound right. Even though Emmie could see that Andi believed every word she said, she refused to, _refused to_ believe her dad would do something like that.

She breathed in. ‘I don’t know who told you that,’ she said, trying to match the cold and angry voice Andi had been using. It was a good voice, a powerful voice, and Emmie sensed that life at school would become a lot easier if she could master it too, ‘but my dad did not kill Lamia. You’ve got it wrong.’

Andi shot up and bolted from the bed, launching herself at the bars with such a force that it _had_ to hurt. Her hands curled around the bars, gripping them so tight her knuckles shone white while she snarled: ‘Sssstop _lying,_ Emmie Jonessss!’

With her eyes turned to golden slits, razor sharp fangs bared and her skin shifting towards scales again, she looked more like a snake than ever. But even though Andi had gone from quiet sadness to terrifying in the blink of an eye, Emmie felt far from terrified. Perhaps it was the heavy steel bars between them. Perhaps it was the fact that Emmie now knew what was going on, which took away the fear of the unknown.

Perhaps it was the bright pink princess band aid on Andi’s arm where Mister Jenkins had extracted his final mithridate ingredient. Whatever it was, Emmie did not recoil or flinch away when Andi slammed herself into the bars a second time, hissing like a steam kettle and snarling again: ‘Sssstop _lying_!’

‘I’m not lying,’ Emmie said calmly, far more calmly than the situation probably warranted. Then again, heavy steel bars. ‘You’ve got it wrong. He didn’t kill her, he wouldn’t do that. He’s never done that, he said so.’

Andi snorted. Or rather, she hiss-snorted, making the same noise as before and sounding just as unpleasant. ‘Ezzzzekiel Jonessss is a thief, a coward and a tricksssster. He’s _lying,_ Emmie Jonessss.’

‘He’s a thief,’ Emmie conceded with a grin because she wasn’t stupid. She knew what her dad did for a living before the Library happened. ‘And he knows a lot of tricks. But he’s not a coward, and he never lies. And he’s never killed anybody.’

‘Are you ssssure about that, Emmie Jonessss?’ Andi said, now leering at Emmie as if she knew something Emmie didn’t. ‘Are you _ssssure_?’

Emmie wasn’t _entirely_ sure. Especially not because Andi was now grinning in the face of Emmie’s uncertainty, a superior kind of smirk that set Emmie’s hackles rising. There had been some Library adventures her dad flat out refused to tell her about, and some adventures where he kept the showdown with the bad guy so vague, that he might as well have not told her anything. Emmie was bright enough to realize that working for a magical Library probably wasn’t all fun and games and playing with magical flying swords all the time, and that there was probably some pretty bad stuff happening from time to time. So alright, maybe her dad _had_ done some bad things, but.

‘He never lies,’ she repeated, looking Andi squarely in the eye because this was something she _was_ sure of. ‘He never lies and he wouldn’t kill somebody like that. I promise you: he did not kill Lamia.’

Emmie was perhaps more than a little pleased with that _I promise you._ It sounded mature and important, it was what her dad always said when he was telling her something that was absolutely true, no doubt about it. But Andi still did not look convinced. She shook her head, her lips still curled in a vicious snarl as she kept staring at Emmie, sizing her up like she was nothing more than a little mouse, a small snack that would be just the thing for a serpent creature that had been cooped up underground for several days.

Emmie met Andi’s gaze and held it while the silent seconds ticked away. Andi couldn’t hurt her anymore, not right now and not down here, and Emmie didn’t care if she had to spend hours upon hours in this cold, dark cave, trying to convince Andi of the truth. Emmie would stay here for as long as it took because her dad never killed anybody and Andi was _wrong._

It didn’t take that long, however. Because after several minutes of silent staring, Andi looked up at the sound of footsteps echoing through the corridor.

Emmie had not been scared of Andi. But she felt cold dread landing in her gut and spreading through her veins as another beam of light pierced the darkness, joining the flashlight of Emmie’s phone and the electric heaters in Andi’s cell, before the footsteps came to a halt and the stern voice of Eve Baird said: ‘What the _hell_ do you think you are doing down here?’


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezekiel is _not_ thrilled when he finds out about the fact that his kid snuck down to talk to a snake monster. Also, apparently you _can_ empathize with a snake monster that tried to eat you, just a tiny little bit...

_‘What were you thinking?’_

If Emmie had thought that Eve Baird was angry when she barked that Emmie get upstairs _now_ before almost physically dragging her off the chair and back to the Annex through the maze of dark and ancient hallways, then her dad was absolutely livid. He was waiting for her when she shuffled into the room behind Eve, leaning against his desk but shooting upright the moment he saw her. Stalking over in two huge strides, her dad towered over her with flashing eyes and a face dark with anger as he repeated in a voice as sharp as one of Poppins’ knives: ‘What the _hell_ were you thinking?’

There was a time when Emmie would have been terrified by an angry man towering over her like that. But this was her dad, and she had decided about an hour ago that she was done with being scared, so instead of cowering behind Eve (who had quickly stepped aside and was now hovering next to her, ready to intervene if necessary), she burst out just as vehemently: ‘I was just trying to help!’

‘By going down there _on your own?’_ her dad asked, deflating a little but still looking at her with a stern look in his usually smiling eyes. ‘Kiwi, what did I tell you about backup? About letting people know what you’re doing? About having a _plan?’_

‘I wanted to let you know, but you all just kept talking,’ Emmie shot back, which earned her a snort from Eve. It was a lie, of course; there was no way Emmie would have gone ‘dad, I’m going down to talk to the snake monster that almost killed you, you want to come with me?’. She could just imagine her dad’s response, which was exactly why she had snuck off the way she had. ‘And I had a plan!’

The look her dad gave her told Emmie he’d seen right through her bullshit, but he let it go for now. ‘Okay, sure, you had a plan. And that plan was?’

‘I was going to tell her that she was wrong and that you did not kill Lamia so that she’d stop being so angry with you and try to kill you!’

Silence. Her dad stared down at her while Emmie looked back, defiant and breathing heavily. By now, Jake, Cassandra and Jenkins had filtered back into the Annex as well and were hanging back at the side of the room to give both Joneses enough space to shout at each other. As the silence held on, however, Jake stepped up and cleared his throat. ‘It wasn’t a bad plan, kid,’ he said, ignoring the death glare Emmie’s dad threw his way, ‘but next time, don’t go giving your dad a heart attack right after he almost got his ass eaten by a monster, okay?’

Emmie nodded because okay, that was fair. Then she watched as a long look passed between Uncle Jake and her dad, a look that held a lot of unspoken things that Emmie did not really understand. There was another long moment of quiet, the entire room seemingly holding its breath before her dad’s face softened and he gave a curt nod, at which Uncle Jake’s mouth quirked into an almost smile. ‘Just tryin’ to help,’ he said softly as he shrugged and stepped back to stand next to Cassandra, who had been watching the entire interaction with a quiet intensity that reminded Emmie of the way Poppins (and her dad) looked at strangers who came a little too close for comfort. Hoping that they’d be friendly, but mentally steeling themselves in case they were not.

Looking from Emmie’s dad to Jake and back again, another heartbeat passed before Cassandra nodded as well. The entire room seemed to breathe out again and as Emmie’s dad turned back towards Emmie, she noticed with a twinge of relief that he didn’t look angry anymore. Instead his shoulders sagged a little and his throat worked as he swallowed a couple of times before he said, in a soft and serious voice: ‘So did you talk to her?’

\---

Yes, Kiwi did indeed have a conversation with the murderous snake monster. Ezekiel didn’t know whether to feel terror at the thought of his kid going toe to toe with Echidna, pride because she had apparently managed to get Echidna to talk where all the others had failed, confusion and relief at whatever the _hell_ had just happened between him and Jake, or anger that all of this seemed to be caused by a simple misunderstanding. So, instead of choosing just one of these emotions, he simply let Kiwi tell the rambling story of her conversation with Echidna while he sat back down on his desk and had himself a nice and quiet screaming session inside his head.

‘So then I promised her that you didn’t kill Lamia and I think she almost believed me, but then Colonel Eve came and then she said I had to go back upstairs so then I did,’ Kiwi finished, biting her lip and looking around at the five faces watching her with five different yet grave expressions. ‘I just wanted to help,’ she said quietly, defiance draining out of her now that her little adventure seemed to be over.

‘You did,’ Cassandra said with a half-smile and, seeing the dark look Ezekiel gave her, continued: ‘Ezekiel, she _did_ help _._ None of us got this much information out of Echidna and we could’ve been stuck arguing and discussing things for ages up here if Emmie hadn’t gone down to, you know. Just _ask_ her.’

‘She’s got a point, Jones,’ Jake added softly and Ezekiel had to take a slow, deep breath so he wouldn’t hit the cowboy with another death glare. He breathed out again, just as slowly, scrubbed a hand over his face because his eyes were starting to burn and said: ‘I know. But. Just. Kiwi, don’t you _ever_ scare me like that again, okay? ‘Cause that was a real Mufasa moment you just caused.’

For some reason, this did not have quite the effect Ezekiel expected. Instead of looking suitably chastened and remorseful, Kiwi’s face went curiously blank before she shot a very careful glance at Jake. Who winked. And did not even bother trying to hide his own grin as Kiwi went down into a fit of laughter while Ezekiel looked on, helpless and clueless, right before he decided that he did not even want to know.

Even in the midst of his minor meltdown, Ezekiel had noticed that Jenkins’ face had also gone curiously blank when Kiwi told them the mithridate shouldn’t have worked. He filed that away under the tab Quick Questions for Jenkins, to be dealt with later, as he patiently waited for Kiwi to calm down and gather herself back together. She did so after a few moments, still occasionally giggling and studiously avoiding looking at Jake before her expression grew serious again and she nodded. ‘I know,’ she muttered. ‘I’m sorry.’

This earned her a groaned ‘don’t you start’ from Cassandra and Ezekiel quickly had to look away before he would start laughing as well. ‘It’s okay,’ he said after a moment of valiant swallowing and before reaching out to pull Kiwi into a hug. ‘It’s okay. But now, you stay here, you hear me? You stay here, with Jenkins and you do _not_ sneak off again into the Library, or through a magic door, or anywhere else, okay? You stay here and wait while _I_ go down and talk to Echidna.’

This immediately produced a variety of responses, most of them different variations on the word ‘ _no!’_

‘Jones, as your Guardian, there’s no way in hell you are going down there alone.’

‘Ezekiel, you can’t. You’ve only been awake for three hours and you still look all pale and wobbly.’

‘Mister Jones, Miss Cillian is right. I would _strongly_ advise against this.’

‘Dad, you can’t!’

‘Seriously man? You just lectured your kid about goin’ off on her own and now you’re gonna go and do the exact same thing yourself?’

And so on, and so forth. Watching the vehement reaction with a bemused look on his face, Ezekiel let them all rant for a moment before he held up his hands. ‘Guys, guys, calm down. I wasn’t done yet.’

‘You weren’t?’ Eve asked, one sardonic eyebrow raised over a suspicious blue eye.

Ezekiel grinned back, undaunted. ‘Nope. You’re right. I’m not going down alone, because you’re coming with me.’

Eve had very expressive eyebrows. For instance, after ‘sardonic’, they were also very good at conveying ‘taken aback' and 'confused’.

‘Look,’ Ezekiel said, ‘you’ve been stabbed by DuLaque as well, so you know, you can probably relate a little. Also, you’ve got a gun and I know Echidna’s immortal and all, but if she tries anything, getting shot in the face will probably still hurt like a bitch.’ Eve’s eyebrows relented, now inching towards ‘impressed’ and Ezekiel let his face grow serious for two whole seconds. ‘Plus, you’re ex-NATO. Out of all of us, you’ve probably got the most experience in talking to captive hostile elements.’

‘Not that much,’ Eve said, still looking impressed with Ezekiel’s awesome reasoning. ‘Loose nukes are far less talkative than you’d think.’ She paused, then nodded briskly. ‘But fair enough, Jones, you and I will go down to talk to the snake monster while the others _stay here._ ’ This was said with a glare like dark blue steel at Kiwi, who had the grace to finally look a little chastened.

‘While we’re down there,’ Ezekiel added while turning his head to look at Jake, ‘Stone, I know you dropped Lamia’s body off in the middle of nowhere and called 911 for her, but do you know where she ended up after that?’

The way Jake suddenly looked caught off guard told Ezekiel the answer. ‘You do, don’t you?’ he asked softly. Jake nodded, and Ezekiel might have known that the cowboy would be too much of a gentleman to leave a dead girl in a ditch by the side of the road without further thought.

‘I know the hospital they took her to,’ Jake said after a long pause. ‘And… uhm. I might know where she ended up next. But I’d have to look it up, ‘cause I don’t know for sure.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Cassandra said. There was a brief glimmer of sadness in her eyes when she looked at Jake, which told Ezekiel she had come to the same realization he had.

‘Good,’ Ezekiel said, nodding at her before he looked down. ‘Kiwi, can I leave you with Jenkins without having to go on another search and rescue mission when I come back?’

Kiwi nodded, already inching her way towards Jenkins who did his best to look like he hadn’t already lost track of Ezekiel’s kid twice.

‘Alright then. Baird, let’s go down and try to convince a vicious snake creature that I did not murder her daughter.’

\---

‘Ezzzzekiel Jonessss. Are you here to convinsssse me you did not murder my daughter?’

Ezekiel sat down in the chair, trying to make it look like an unconscious decision rather than a necessity. Even if it had just been a short flight of decent, not-ancient stairs and a couple of dozen feet through a bright and well-lit, evenly tiled hallway to reach Echidna’s cell (thanks, Ray), he was still feeling, as Cassandra put it, rather wobbly. Baird was hovering behind him, ready to haul him back upstairs the moment things looked like they might go pear-shaped. Which, judging by the way Echidna was leering at them from under her electric heaters, might very well happen.

‘I’m here to ask you a few questions,’ Ezekiel said, not flinching under the golden-eyed leer. ‘And then I’m going to tell you what really happened, and you can decide for yourself what the truth is. Sounds fair?’

‘Ssssounds fair, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss.’

‘And can we quit it with the full name, please? I know it makes a nice hissing noise, but it’s really not necessary.’

‘Ssssure.’

Ezekiel glared. ‘Who told you to come after me?’

Echinda stared back. ‘I don’t undersssstand.’

‘What he means,’ said Eve, in her authoritarian NATO voice which secretly scared the crap out of Ezekiel, ‘is that we get why you might think one of us killed Lamia. But what made you think it was him, and not me, or one of the others?’

‘Because sssshe told me,’ Echidna replied, her gaze shifting from Ezekiel to Eve and back like she was trying to decide who to speak to. ‘The woman who wassss there told me you sssstabbed her.’

‘What woman?’ Eve asked, voice low and tense as Ezekiel tried not to let the apprehension he suddenly felt show. ‘There was no woman there. We’d have noticed, believe me.’

‘Sssshe didn’t sssay her name,’ Echidna said, smirking at Ezekiel’s unease and ignoring Eve’s muttering of ‘that’s convenient’. ‘But sssshe wassss one of ussss. A Sssserpent. And sssshe told me how _you_ sssstabbed my child, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss, and sssselebrated over her dead body!’

‘Okay, first of all,’ Ezekiel said, rolling his eyes, ‘nobody celebrated anything, okay? Even if I had killed her, victory laps aren’t my style.’ He paused, sensed the disbelieving look Eve shot at his back and amended: ‘Victory laps _when someone died_ aren’t my style. Second of all, you ever stopped to think that this mystery woman who didn’t tell you her name might not be telling the truth either?’

Echidna tapped her arm. Or rather, the black band tattooed around it. ‘Sssserpentssss don’t lie to each other, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss.’

‘I told you to cut that out.’

‘Ssssorry.’

‘So she was a member of the Brotherhood,’ Eve broke in. ‘I hate to break it to you, but she was lying. Jones didn’t kill Lamia; DuLaque did.’

One, two, three, _four_ heartbeats of deafening silence. Then a sound like an exploding tea kettle as Echidna, howling with rage, flung herself off the bed and against the bars of her cell with a force that made her bounce right back on to the mattress, where she only sat still for a split second before she bent backwards in a way that human spines are _not_ supposed to and let out another furious scream. And another, and another, the sound ringing through the room as Eve grabbed Ezekiel’s shoulder and bodily dragged him out of the chair and back into the direction of the Annex.

\---

‘So she believed you?’ Cassandra asked after they made it back, the echo of Echidna’s fury following them all the way upstairs. ‘Just like that?’

‘I think she does,’ Ezekiel replied, opening his laptop and punching buttons until the wireless webcam he left downstairs connected and a screen popped up, showing a grainy picture of Echidna hurling herself once again against the bars and, from the looks of it, still screaming her head off. ‘She was a lot more glib when she thought we were lying to her. And come on, everybody who’s spent more than five minutes with DuLaque would _absolutely_ believe he’d stab you in the back without blinking.’

He looked at the screen again, where Echidna had turned away from the bars and was now starting to take her wrath out on the mattress. Within seconds, clumps of filling went flying everywhere and the cell looked like the house of an unpopular middle school teacher at Halloween, with rips of white cotton hanging off of every available surface. Once the mattress was vanquished, the bed was next: Echidna lifted up the frame with ease and flung it against the bars, resulting in a clang that, even though they couldn’t hear it, shook the entire cell. But as the bedframe landed on the ground, so did the snake monster. Her face contorted and twisted beyond any normal human expression as her head fell backwards, her knees buckled and she dropped down, _stayed_ down, coiled up into a shaking heap on the dirt-packed floor.

‘Oh shit,’ Jake muttered from where he was watching on Ezekiel’s other side. Ezekiel looked up from the outburst of rage and grief on the screen, over to where Kiwi was sitting (for once) demurely on the stairs to the mezzanine, reading her book while waiting for Jenkins, and then back to the screen again. His shoulder still hurt like hell and his muscles were starting to protest more and more against every movement, a clear indication that he should probably go back to bed.

Echidna had almost stopped moving completely, apart from the shaking shoulders and her hands that were digging into the dirt like claws. Her forehead was pressed against the floor so that her face was hidden in shadows, which was perhaps for the best.

Ezekiel looked back at Kiwi again. She smiled as she caught his eye, and the pain in his shoulder momentarily subsided and gave way to an unexpectedly violent twinge of sympathy as he turned his attention back towards Echidna.

_Oh shit_ indeed.

‘Yeah,’ he said, slowly standing up and ignoring the way his shoulder screamed in protest. ‘Baird, I think we better get back downstairs.’


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback time!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've followed the story so far, you probably know what's coming but just to be sure: this chapter contains canon minor character death.

When Ezekiel entered Echidna’s prison cave again, followed on his heels by both Eve and Jake (‘cause she probably wants to hear where her kid ended up from someone who's actually been there,’), Echidna seemed to have calmed down a little. She had drawn herself a little upright, to sit against the wall of her cell with her shoulders hunched and her arms wrapped around her knees, her face hidden in the space between. Surrounded by clumps of yellow mattress filling and white strips of bedsheet, the remnants of her fury, she looked nothing but pitiful and as he sat down on the chair, Ezekiel could not help but feel sorry for her.

Eve took up her position behind him while Jake came up to stand next to Ezekiel, one hand on the back of the chair. It was a small gesture, it wasn’t even any physical contact and it wouldn’t prevent him from falling out of the chair (a real possibility, no matter how much he kept assuring the others that he was alright), but it was still closeness and did make Ezekiel feel a little steadier, if only mentally. As he tried not to lean into Jake’s solid bulk too blatantly, he heard the cowboy rumble something unintelligible above his head, starting with the word _Echidna_ and ending on a questioning tone.

Echidna looked up. Her golden eyes were now dull and red-rimmed and her voice sounded flat as she said: ‘That’ssss ssssweet of you to try, cowboy, but let’ssss sssspeak Englissssh. I don’t think Ezzzzekiel Jonessss and the Colonel sssspeak my tongue.’

‘Fair enough,’ Jake said with a shrug and Ezekiel quickly suppressed a smile as Eve gave out a huff. ‘I asked you if you needed anything.’

Echidna shook her head, fixing the three of them with a stare that promised a world of pain for anyone foolish enough to try and comfort her. ‘Jusssst tell me what happened to my daughter.’

\---

_Ezekiel had no idea what the fuck just happened. He could follow everything from the point where they fought a couple of mummies, met up with Flynn who had_ not _mentioned the mummies but who_ did _claim he’d found a way to bring back the Library. Then back to the Annex where it somehow turned out that all their adventures up until now had left them with the exact items they needed (and wasn’t that a nice coincidence) and for once, everything seemed to come together beautifully. Right up to the point where the sarcophagus started smoking and the whole thing had turned out to be a massive trap. Because of course it had been._

_Then DuLaque and Lamia were there and DuLaque had started talking about a blood sacrifice. Lamia nodded and reached for Flynn and for one moment things looked like they would go horribly,_ horribly _wrong, right before DuLaque gave one of those creepy lizard smiles. There was a noise that Ezekiel knew but really wished he didn’t and then DuLaque was gone, Eve and Flynn were gone and Ezekiel, Stone, Cassandra and Jenkins were alone. The Annex was quiet again._

_And Lamia was bleeding out in Jenkins’ arms._

_Ezekiel knew she was dying. No matter how quickly Jenkins handed her over to Jake so he could get a look at the wound while barking at Cassandra to go get his medical supplies_ now, _Ezekiel could already see that no amount of mystical salves and potions would be enough._

_As Cassandra came racing back, an ancient leather doctor’s bag in hand, Jenkins started to cut away the black material of Lamia’s top, hoping against experience that he could still do something. And Jenkins might have god knows how many years of experience behind him, but Ezekiel had seen wounds like this before: deep, precise, and inflicted with a ruthless, cold efficiency that did the maximum amount of damage in the least amount of time. Unless Jenkins could arrange some kind of miracle in the next few seconds, Lamia had maybe a minute left before she’d pass out. Another minute and she’d be dead._

_Stepping back, out of the crowd that surrounded the dying girl on the floor, Ezekiel wasn’t even surprised to see how Jake had wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gathered her close to his chest. He knew Jake had always had a soft spot for the girl who had come after him with a katana on multiple occasions. What did surprise him a little, was the way she was clinging to him as well, with her hands gripping the cowboy’s bicep like a vice, eyes closed and deep lines etched into her brow as she struggled for a breath that was already coming from far too far away. ‘Don’t do me like this, darlin’,’ he heard Jake mutter, his eyes closed as well and his forehead resting against the top of Lamia’s head. ‘You know, you still owe me a drink.’_

_Ezekiel didn’t want to know. Lamia whispered something in response, something Ezekiel didn’t catch but, according to his chuckle, Jake did. ‘That’s okay, darlin’,’ he said, his voice gentle and adjusting his grip a little because she was beginning to sag further away. ‘That’s okay.’_

_Lamia whispered something else, to which Jake didn’t reply. He merely shifted a little, to get them both in a slightly more comfortable position. Then, as Lamia’s muscles suddenly relaxed and the pained expression on her face smoothed out, Jake cradled the back of her head with one hand to let it rest against his shoulder while behind her, Jenkins shook his head and sat back. Lamia was still breathing, but it was getting shallower by the second until it was the barest rise and fall of her chest. Her dark skin was already turning an ashy grey and Ezekiel, still watching everything in a kind of_ this isn’t happening _dispassionate way, had just started a mental countdown when he saw the look on Cassandra’s face._

_Ezekiel might think of himself as a hardened, bitter old sort, but a girl who stared her own mortality in the face every time she looked in the mirror, did not need to be confronted with death like this. He got up from where he was leaning against Jake’s desk to crouch down beside her. ‘Cass,’ he said softly, putting a hand on a shoulder that was so tense, it felt like a brick wall, ‘she’ll be getting cold. You want to go upstairs and fetch her a blanket?’_

_The look Cassandra gave him told him she knew exactly what he was doing, but she didn’t protest. Just took a shaky breath, nodded, and then got up and went upstairs on legs that were even shakier._

_She took a long time, although she didn’t need to. As soon as Cassandra had vanished from sight, Jake very quietly muttered ‘shit’ in an odd, strangled kind of voice and when Ezekiel turned around, he saw that Lamia had gone completely still._

_\---_

While Ezekiel was talking, Echidna kept staring at the same patch of floor in front of her feet, still sitting hunched into herself against the wall of her cell. Eve and Jake had sat themselves down as well, because at the moment, there was really no point in standing guard. Jake was sitting against one of the chair legs, his shoulder not-brushing Ezekiel’s leg. Ezekiel kept still, pretending very hard he wasn’t grateful for the support Jake’s presence gave him. Eve was leaning against the wall, a little behind them. This meant that Ezekiel couldn’t see her, but he did hear the way she had gone very quiet during his story. Which was not surprising given the fact that this was probably the first time she explicitly heard what had happened between the moment she and Flynn first followed DuLaque through the Back Door and the moment the healing oil was poured down her throat.

Echidna looked up. The dullness in her eyes had left, and was replaced with a furious grief that made Ezekiel really, _really_ glad that DuLaque wasn’t anywhere near. If he had been, no amount of steel bars would stop Echidna from ripping him to pieces in the same way as her bedsheet. ‘Sssso what did you do nexssst?’

\---

_‘What do we do now?’ Cassandra whispered. She was sitting on the stairs to the mezzanine, slumped against the wall and staring at the blanket on the floor. Jake was sitting next to her, or rather, lying next to her, with his head in her lap and her fingers nervously carding through his hair. He had started out upright, with a comforting arm around Cassandra’s shoulder, but it hadn’t taken long before he had started trembling too much himself and Cassandra had reverted their positions without much fuss. Ezekiel couldn’t really blame the guy. Having two women bleed out in your arms within the same day, within the same hour even, would take a lot out of anyone._

_‘I don’t know,’ Jake rasped, dull eyes fixed on the red and green plaid as well but without seeing anything. His voice sounded even more like wet gravel than usual. ‘I don’t… I don’t…’_

_His eyes scrunched shut and he let go of Cassandra’s knee with one hand to drag it over his face. ‘I don’t know, Cassie,’ he repeated roughly. Cassandra made a soft noise in response and then a couple of things happened that Ezekiel could not quite follow, but that ended with Cassandra’s arms wrapped tight around Jake’s heaving shoulders and Jake’s face buried into the fabric of her dress. One arm went around her waist as she bent over his back, both of them shaking and Ezekiel was once again reminded that, even though he was by far the youngest of them all, the others had lived a far more sheltered life than he had._

_He turned around to see Jenkins, sitting at his desk with his usual unaffected mask firmly in place. Eve and Flynn were nowhere to be seen; Ezekiel’s best guess was that they were somewhere in the Library, and that was frankly all he wanted to know. ‘Jenkins,’ he asked, his voice low so that Jake and Cassandra wouldn’t hear, ‘what_ do _you usually do when someone dies in here?’_

_At least, given a Librarian’s day-to-day activities and the various lethal artefacts in the Library archives, he assumed Lamia was not the first person to die in the Library. He turned out to be right; Jenkins heaved a sigh and said: ‘Well, Mr. Jones, usually when a person dies in the Library, they are either a Librarian or a Guardian. Which means that, if they have not specified any wishes to the contrary, they are cremated, after which their urn is kept in the Memory wing, together with those belongings, diaries, etcetera that they left behind. But seeing as Lamia was neither Librarian nor Guardian, I must confess I have no idea what the usual procedure is. This does not happen as often as you’d think.’_

_‘I didn’t think it would,’ Ezekiel muttered, right as Cassandra straightened up from where she had been shielding Jake’s shaking form. Her face was streaked with tears and one of her hands was still scrunched tight into Jake’s shirt. Jake, however, didn’t look up and was still clinging to her, so Cassandra moved one hand up to card gently through his hair again as she swallowed, looked to the Back Door and said: ‘I think I’ve got an idea.’_

\---

‘Cowboy,’ Ezekiel said softly, nudging Jake’s shoulders with a knee. ‘You want to take it from here?’

\---

_The night air was humid and warm as Jake stepped out of the Annex and on to a road in the English countryside with Lamia’s body in his arms. The location had been Cassandra’s idea as well: after all, for all they knew, Lamia had been British and he’d be much less likely to be spotted or caught on camera in the countryside than in the middle of a village or town._

_The plan was simple: get to the UK, leave Lamia somewhere where she’d easily be found, call the emergency services and leave. As for the question who was going to do this, well, that hadn’t really been a question at all. As soon as Jenkins had got up to make his way over to the coordinate globe, Jake had gotten up as well, stepped down the stairs and scooped Lamia up without a word, blanket and all. She was impossibly heavy, but he lifted her up and stood there in silence, his back rigid and his face unreadable. Still like a statue, waiting until the door finally started to glow. Then he stepped forward, not looking at Cassie’s face that was still shining with tears, or at Jenkins and Jones who were both watching the bundle in his arms in a way that told him this had not been the first dead body they’d seen._

_That would have to be a conversation for another day, though, because now Jake was walking down a narrow road, looking for a spot where he could leave Lamia without being seen when the paramedics showed up._

_Yeah, screw that part of the plan, because he was not going to call for help and run. His mama raised him right; he was not going to leave a girl alone in the woods in the middle of the night without making sure she would be alright. The fact that the girl was already dead did not matter. If anything, it made it even more important that he stay and keep watch._

_After about a quarter of a mile, the shrubbery at both sides of the road opened up a little to give way to a field. There were shapes moving over the grass in the darkness, probably sheep judging by the size and the faint bleating drifting through the air. Otherwise, the night was silent as Jake stepped off the road, carefully put down his load and took off the blanket._

_And stopped. Sat down on his knees in the dirt and carefully brushed a bit of blanket fluff out of the jet black hair. Looking down at Lamia, at a face that looked far too serene for the person she had been, he shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you hoped for,’ he told her after a brief silence, only disturbed by the usual country night noises of rustling grass, buzzing insects and bleating sheep. His voice barely cut through it as he continued: ‘I don’t know why you followed him, or what he promised you. But you deserved better than what he gave you, and I am sorry it ended this way.’_

_He paused for a second, suppressing a smile at the thought of what she would do if she could hear him being a sentimental ass over her dead body. She would have kicked the ever-loving shit out of him, which was why he bit back the rest of his impromptu eulogy. Instead he shook his head again, brushed another bit of fluff off of her face and carefully arranged her in as comfortable a position as he could manage. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured again, before finally letting go and bundling up the now empty blanket._

_He stood up. Walked back a couple of paces where he found a spot that afforded a good view of the place where he left her, without being seen himself. Got out his phone, called 999 and told the very helpful woman on the other end that he’d been walking his dog, just walking his dog and then the dog had acted all strange and had gone into a field and there was a_ girl _lying there, all_ dead _and covered in_ blood _. So she better send an ambulance and the police and maybe some soldiers or a bomb squad as well because there was obviously a terrorist on the loose murdering young and innocent women and leaving them in fields just like that._

_After the day he’d had, he only wished the trembling in his voice and the choked back tears were a lie as well. Then he hung up the phone and stood watch until bright blue lights appeared in the distance. Closer and closer they came, closer until the previously dark and quiet night came alive with blaring sirens, dancing rays of white flashlight and shouted commands of both paramedics and cops. Jake watched as the full might of the county’s emergency services descended on an unnamed field in the middle of nowhere, to take care of an unnamed dead girl. He stood watch for as long as he could, hidden in the shadows beneath the trees. Not moving, not making a sound. Just standing there and keeping guard._

_Until the flashlights left the field and started approaching down the road, and at last, it was time to go._

_\---_

‘A few days later, I called the morgue,’ Jake continued softly, slowly as if he could feel the looks Ezekiel and Eve were giving him behind his back. ‘Not many of ‘em in that part of the UK, so it was easy enough to find the one who’d received a Jane Doe from a field a couple of nights before. Couldn’t ask too many questions, of course, but. Um. I did find out where they buried her. Could point you towards the place, if you wanted to.’

‘You mean you’d sssset me free?’ Echidna said, looking with suspiciously narrowed eyes from Jake to Ezekiel to Eve and back again. All the way through Ezekiel’s and Jake’s stories, she had not moved, not reacted or given any indication that she might believe them. Only when Jake told them about the way he said goodbye, she had narrowed her eyes a little and made a soft hissing noise. Ezekiel didn’t know what that noise meant, if it was good or bad, but he suspected that whatever it was, it wasn’t aimed at them.

‘That depends,’ Eve said before Jake, bleeding cowboy heart that he was, would use the moment to do anything stupid. ‘On whether you believe us or not. And, more importantly, on whether you plan to take another bite out of Jones or not.’

As if on cue, Ezekiel’s shoulder gave a vicious throb and he winced. Echidna glanced over towards him and her eyes narrowed even further. ‘I pumped you full of poisssson,’ she hissed, renewed anger adding to the confusion in her voice. ‘How did you ssssurvive?’

Ezekiel shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t currently on fire as he fought to keep from swaying in his chair. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to come down here again after all. 'No clue,' he said, struggling to focus through the fog that was threatening to surround him again. ‘I did, though.’

‘Yessss, I can ssssee that,’ Echidna sneered. ‘And I now ssssee sssshe wassss right about you. You’re a dangeroussss man, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss.’

‘ _She_ would be the mystery woman without a name?’ Jake asked, tensing now that Echidna was shifting from grieving to vicious again.

‘Sssshe told me you were impervioussss,’ Echida continued, ignoring Jake’s question. ‘I thought that was bullsssshit but now I ssssee sssshe wassss right.’

‘Impervious to what?’ Ezekiel managed. The fog was getting thicker, but this was more important. He _had_ to stay awake. Just five more minutes, he had to stay awake for five more minutes.

‘Sssshe ssssaid you were impervioussss to magic, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss,’ Echidna said and Ezekiel just had time to think _huh. That’s neat_ before his body finally decided that it had been ignored long enough and switched off the lights.

\---

‘God damn it,’ Jake muttered, doubling over as the full weight of an unconscious Ezekiel Jones landed on top of him from behind. ‘Baird, a little help?’

Footsteps, more muttered swearing and then the weight was lifted a little so that Jake could turn around and catch one stubborn punk ass thief before he fell out of the chair completely. Ezekiel's face had gone disturbingly pale again, but his pulse was steady and his breathing was regular enough. Which meant Jake could take a breath and force down his momentary burst of panic before he started to arrange Ezekiel’s arms and legs for a fireman’s carry back to the Annex.

Until Eve stopped him. ‘Stone, wait.’

Jake looked up, one hand still on Ezekiel’s neck to surreptitiously keep a check on his pulse. ‘Baird, we gotta get him back upstairs.’

‘I know,’ Eve said, throwing the prone form on the floor an exasperated look. ‘But I can do that myself. I’d rather you stay down here, to try and find out who the mystery woman is and what the hell she’s talking about.’ She bent down, grabbed Ezekiel’s wrists with one arm and wrapped the other around his knees so she could hoist him up. Straightening up again, she continued: ‘If Echidna believes us, we might have just disabled the immediate threat. But if there’s a bigger picture behind all of this, I want to know about it.’

 Jake couldn’t argue with that. So, as Eve slowly started making her way back out of the prison cave with Ezekiel draped over her shoulders, like the picture of the Good Shepherd and his Little Lamb Jake remembered from his days at Sunday School, Jake turned back to Echidna. ‘Your turn, miss. Start talking.’


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezekiel is out cold, Jake loses focus a little while talking to Echidna and Eve is Done. Meanwhile, there's some long overdue Cassandra/Emmie bonding time and an unpleasant realisation...

With Jake down in the basement talking to Echidna, Eve keeping an eye on the webcam just in case and Ezekiel out cold with Jenkins fussing over him like a very grumpy mother hen, Cassandra was put on Emmie Watch Duty for the rest of the afternoon. Which was okay. It was cool. Everything was fine. There had been one minor freakout when Eve came into view carrying an unconscious Ezekiel over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes, but Emmie’s brief panic had immediately evaporated once she noticed the exasperated look on Eve’s face. She even laughed when Jenkins heaved an irritated sigh, muttered something uncharitable about young rascal thieves who thought they were invincible and whisked Ezekiel back into the infirmary without further ado.

Apart from that, everything was just peachy. And Cassandra was not freaking out about being left alone with a ten year old at all. Nope. Not at all.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Emmie. Oh no, far from it. As she told Ezekiel earlier, Emmie was _adorable._ Not only that, but she was smart too and Cassandra was, in general, pretty comfortable around smart kids. Especially when said smart kid sometimes looked so much like her father that it hurt. But where Jake and Emmie seemed to get along like a house on fire, and Jenkins seemed to have won Emmie’s undying love and gratitude when he showed her the unicorns, Cassandra… was a bit more worried.

She liked Emmie, she really did. It was just that she had no _experience_ with kids, not in the way Jake had with his billion nieces and nephews, or like Jenkins with his billion years of life experience. She had been an only child, her parents were both only children too so there were no nieces, nephews or cousins and, well. As far as her own childhood went, she hadn’t even _been_ a normal child herself so drawing from there was obviously out of the question.

As long as she had had Ezekiel or Jake to back her up when she was talking to Emmie, she had been fine. But now they were both out, both literally and metaphorically. And Cassandra was sitting at her desk, surreptitiously keeping an eye on Emmie who was curled up reading a book on a couch in the corner, having the vague sense that she should _do_ something with the kid, but having no clue what that something should be.

Then Eve muttered a curse from behind the laptop and Cassandra whipped around, fully expecting to see the colonel get out her gun and storm down the stairs because a snake monster had gotten loose and eaten their cowboy. Emmie dropped her book and shot up as well, her tiny frame tense as a bow and brown eyes wide with alarm. Eve swore again before she groaned and buried her face in her hands, which was enough to tell Cassandra that things might not be as dire down there as she thought.

‘What happened?’ she asked, getting up and making her way over to take a look at the webcam herself. There, the image was gray and grainy, but all too clear. ‘Oh no.’

‘Yep,’ Eve sighed, shaking her head. ‘Stone got out his notebook.’

Cassandra couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I guess this is what happens when you leave him alone with an Ancient Greek mythology monster,’ she said, shaking her head fondly at the tiny picture of Jake scribbling away as Echidna talked. ‘He’s doing research, he’s probably working out the outline for his next paper already.’

‘Oh God,’ Eve groaned again, her shoulders slumping forward over her desk. ‘This is going to take forever.’

‘Probably,’ Cassandra said, still smiling and putting a sympathetic hand on Eve’s back. ‘But I’m not waiting around until he’s done, though.’

Because in a flash of inspiration, Cassandra knew exactly what to do when on babysit duty. ‘Emmie’s been cooped up in here for almost three days now, I think it’s time she got outside. Could you tell Jake we went to Portland to do some sightseeing?’

‘If he ever comes back,’ Eve said, giving the screen another despairing look. ‘But yeah, I’ll tell him. Just make sure you get her back okay, so that her dad doesn’t kill you if he wakes up.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Cassandra replied, before looking over to Emmie with a grin. ‘Emmie, you want to go get Voodoo doughnuts?’

Emmie didn’t know what the Voodoo part meant, but she understood the doughnut part all too well. She was at the door before Cassandra could grab her coat.

\---

Thirty minutes and two garishly decorated doughnuts later, Cassandra and Emmie found themselves walking down the street in downtown Portland, with Cassandra carrying the box with the remaining ten doughnuts (as if they were going to get just two).

It was nice. The weather was a little crisp, but in a fresh, invigorating way that made you actually look forward to the coming winter season instead of dreading it. The sun was out, there was a light breeze with just a little autumn edge to it and there was a cozy bustle of people out, so that the street was not too crowded but did not feel lonely either. As they walked, they talked, about the doughnuts, which had exceeded Emmie’s wildest expectations. About the shops they walked by, and how they were different from the ones in the UK or in Auckland, in so far as Emmie could remember anything about Auckland. And most importantly, they talked about the huge Bernese Mountain dog that passed by and that took a shine to Emmie (or perhaps more likely, to the sticky doughnut remnants on her fingers). After Cassandra had wrestled a reluctant Emmie away, and the owner had managed to convince the dog to continue their walk, the conversation turned to animals and pets and Emmie’s sadly departed bunny rabbit.

‘I used to let her out of the cage at night, because she looked so sad when she was in there,’ Emmie explained. ‘And Poppins didn’t notice because I would put her back every morning and then clean up all her droppings and anyway, she never made a big mess but then one night I had let her out and I went to sleep but suddenly there was this big spark and then all the lights went out and Poppins came to my room all worried and upset and he had a flashlight and then when he looked he saw that Bunny had eaten through the wires of one of the lamps on the wall and he got really angry even though it wasn’t really my fault because I was asleep and I hadn’t done anything!’ She glared at Cassandra, who did her level best to maintain a suitably grave and sympathetic expression while secretly dying with laughter inside. ‘Dad never let me have another pet after that,’ Emmie ended in a ‘hear this poor, mistreated child’ kind of tone.

‘Perhaps he wanted to wait until you were a little older,’ Cassandra suggested, to which Emmie made face. ‘Yeah,’ she said with a heavy sigh. ‘But he says that about everything.’

That was one thing Cassandra _could_ relate to from her own childhood experience: being ten years old was tough. It was this kind of a strange limbo, where you were still far too young for the real grownup things, while you also suddenly started to realize you might be getting to old for a number of ‘children’s things’.

‘I know,’ Cassandra said, looking down at Emmie with a sympathetic smile. ‘It’s not really fair, is it?’

Emmie shook her head glumly. ‘But at least we’re going to visit my mom now,’ she said a little uncertainly, which made Cassandra quietly go _oh no._ She had done her best to try and keep their conversation light. She had done her best to stay away from such topics as dangerous monsters and possibly dying dads, but it seemed her best efforts hadn’t been enough. For one moment, she thought about letting Emmie’s remark pass and changing the topic again. Sadly, her mouth apparently didn’t get the memo because she could hear herself ask: ‘What happened to your mom?’

Ezekiel had left out that part of Emmie’s story. Probably for good reason. At least, Cassandra assumed that the reason Madeline had never come back to pick Emmie up was not because she had suffered acute amnesia and was now living the life of her dreams in Paris with a handsome chef named Jean-Luc, unaware that she had ever had a child.

Emmie was quiet for a long moment. ‘Her boyfriends always got angry with her,’ she said at last in a small voice. By now they had reached the waterfront of the Willamette River and they both sat down on the grass, the box of doughnuts to the side and momentarily forgotten. ‘And one day, after I had gone to stay with dad, her new boyfriend got _really_ angry and he beat her, really hard.’

The cold hard ground in combination with the chill in the air made Cassandra shiver, but that were not the only reason she suddenly felt cold. Small brown fingers nervously picked at the grass as Cassandra, shocked into silence, waited for Emmie to continue. ‘She is buried in Auckland,’ Emmie said quietly, eyes focused on the blades of grass as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. ‘And dad always said we could go and visit her when I was older, because it’s a really long way away and you can’t stay in an airplane too long when you’re not old enough. Except when we moved to London, of course, but that was different.’

Of course it was. If Cassandra hadn’t been too stunned, she might have appreciated Ezekiel’s creative parenting methods a bit more. As it was, she just swallowed a couple of times before she managed: ‘Do you like living in London?’

It was a bit of an inane question, but anything was better than to continue down the current track. And it seemed to work at first: Emmie looked up, gave a bright smile and launched into a vivid description of all the wonders of living life in London. It was _so cool_ and there were _so many_ things to do and Poppins was _amazing_ and every weekend was party time. Emmi and Poppins would go to the zoo, go to a museum, go shopping (apparently Poppins knew surprisingly well what a ten year old girl would like), go see a show, go see a movie, it was the _best._ Even school was great, because Emmie loved her friends and liked her teachers and no one was ever mean to her because she kind of had two dads, only one didn’t come by all that often. But when her dad _did_ come by, then oh boy. The party time got cranked up to eleven. Those weekends were the best, because her dad always knew the coolest things to do, things even Poppins didn’t know about. And when they came back from whatever adventure they had during the day, her dad would stay with her after Emmie had gone to bed. Those moments were the best of all, because after Emmie had gone to bed, her dad would tell her the stories of the Library. Of the princess and the cowboy and the knight and the ninja. And sometimes, he would tell her about something called a Flynn, although Emmie was a little unsure about what he was supposed to be.

And as Emmie chattered on and on and on, Cassandra very quietly went _oh no_ for the second time in ten minutes. Because she recognized this breakneck speed rambling and the strings of superlatives that painted a slightly too rosy picture to be real. It was a classic Jones deflection technique, and Cassandra could guess what Emmie was not saying while at the same time she used quite a lot of words.

Emmie must have realized that the case that had brought her to the Library was almost closed. And that meant that it would soon be time to go back to London, because Cassandra highly doubted Ezekiel would let Emmie stay just like that. After all, he had made it pretty clear why he kept her out of the Library in the first place and Cassandra could see his point.

The fact that she strongly disagreed with it didn’t matter. As Emmie kept talking, Cassandra nodded, and smiled and laughed out loud at the appropriate moments. But as she looked aside, at sandy curls and a painfully familiar grin, at the same painfully familiar spark in those brown eyes, at scrawny arms gesturing wildly as Emmie indicated just _how big_ the snake at the London Zoo had been… as she looked aside and took in the view, Cassandra once again silently went _oh no._

Taking advantage of a brief breathing break on Emmie’s side, Cassandra decided _to hell with this_ and said: ‘You know, Portland’s pretty great too. You want to go see the Science Museum?’

Emmie lit up, and so that was how they spent the rest of the afternoon. Cassandra soon found out that going to a museum with a ten-year-old was an experience in itself. Especially if that ten-year-old was named Jones, and _especially_ if that museum was as interesting and interactive as the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Cassandra had barely time to answer one question (what does this do?) before Emmie darted off to the other side of the room, firing off two or three new ones (what’s this? Cassandra, how does this work? Can I touch that?) Fortunately, in many cases the answer to that last one was _yes,_ so they spend the rest of the day conducting wacky experiments with electricity that made Emmie’s hair even more of a bird’s nest than usual.

After they had exhausted the experiments, they went to the Planetarium. There Emmie gaped up in awestruck wonder because she’d never known there were _that many_ stars in the sky and did Cassandra really know what all of them were called? Cassandra did indeed, and she was more than happy to tell Emmie all about it. As well as she was happy to tell Emmie all about Star Trek, because you were never too young to learn about the joys of sci-fi.

And of course, they just had to go and explore the submarine. As they did so, Cassandra of course had to tell Emmie about her dad’s own adventure with the submarine. Emmie had heard the story before, but now that she was inside of one herself, she suddenly understood _why_ her dad and Uncle Jake had been so excited to get into a submarine. This was _supercool,_ and it really went underwater so that if you looked out of the window you could see all the fish and the whales and the sharks and the dolphins?

That would be _awesome,_ because Emmie _loved_ dolphins. She pouted in disappointment when Cassandra told her that, the deeper the submarine went, the darker it would get outside so that the chance of seeing anything was practically zero. The disappointment did not last long, though, because look at that there was a _periscope!_

It took a while to pry Emmie away from the periscope and after they resurfaced from the submarine, it was nearing 5pm and growing dark. Which was why Cassandra finally loaded an exhausted but still very talkative Emmie into the car and drove back to the Annex to see how the boys were doing.

\---

 One boy was still asleep when they got back, but the other one had resurfaced as well and was now briefing a very tired looking Eve. As Emmie came rushing in with the (now slightly dented) box of doughnuts, they both looked up, Eve muttering ‘oh thank god’ and Jake’s face splitting into a broad grin. ‘Hey kid,’ he said, catching the pink box before Emmie could crash into him, ‘there better be some of those Oreo ones left in there, or else the both of you are gonna be in deep trouble.’

‘I think there’s one left,’ Cassandra said, dropping her coat on a chair and walking up to peck Jake’s cheek. ‘We only had one each, there’s enough left for everybody else.’

‘You had fun, then?’ Jake said, wrapping an arm loosely around her waist and pressing a brief kiss into her hair in response. Cassandra nodded and, catching Eve’s eye roll, suppressed the urge to laugh as she said: ‘what about you? You have fun down there as well?’

Jake didn’t even bother looking guilty. ‘I did, actually,’ he said with a smug grin that Cassandra found absolutely adorable. ‘Once Echidna got to talkin’, she didn’t stop and the stuff she told me was _fascinating._ I already told Eve, but apparently she’s had loads and loads of kids throughout the centuries. She would just kidnap random dudes whenever she got lonely but instead of eating them…’

He suddenly became aware of Emmie standing next to him and listening attentively. The tips of his ears reddening slightly, Jake continued after only the very briefest of pauses: ‘…they would _hang out_ for a while and so Echidna ended up with lots of babies, almost all of ‘em monsters. But she was smart about it, perhaps she’d learned a thing or two because these kids never made it into the mythology books. I gotta study this more, it could be that a lot of allusions to medieval creatures might actually be…’

Eve groaned and glared. ‘Stone, for the love of…’

‘Jake,’ Cassandra interrupted as well, ‘if you’ve already briefed Eve, perhaps it’s best if we go home. You can tell me everything after we’ve had something to eat.’

‘Alright, alright,’ Jake said, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘Let’s go. Junior, you okay with staying here or you wanna come with us?’

Emmie blinked, momentarily taken aback by the offer. However, before she could respond, Eve caught the look on Cassandra’s face and said: ‘That’s okay, Stone. I’ve got her. You two go home, get some rest. We’ll wrap up the rest of the case tomorrow.’

Emmie nodded and Cassandra fought to keep the relief off her face, not wanting Emmie to see and come to an entirely incorrect conclusion. After two brief goodbye hugs and a whispered ‘thank you for the submarine and the doughnuts’, Emmie was led kitchenwards by Eve and Jake and Cassandra were left alone.

‘You okay?’ Jake murmured, gently nudging Cassandra’s arm. ‘You look a little…’

Cassandra turned and let herself sag against him without a word. Jake took her weight with ease, tightening the arm around her waist and reaching up with the other to cradle the back of her head as Cassandra closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the soft cotton of his plaid shirt with a sigh.

‘Long day?’ Jake asked, his gentle chuckle reverberating warm against her cheek.

‘Long week,’ Cassandra responded with a tired huff. Jake chuckled again. ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

After a few moments of quietly breathing in the comforting scent of coffee, old books and mint shampoo, Cassandra straightened up. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and smiling as Jake seized the moment to press a kiss to her forehead. ‘We’ll have dinner, but before you tell me about Echidna’s kids, I think there’s something else we better discuss first.’


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lady who cannot be seen, Ezekiel is not a happy bunny and we say goodbye to Andi

‘Someone’s been messin’ with her,’ Jake said bluntly by way of starting his briefing.

It was the next morning, and once again, the team had gathered in the central room in the Annex. Bleary-eyed and coffee-fueled, they were standing in a half-circle around the Clippings Book table where Jake had gathered his notes. Or at least those notes that actually had to do with the case at hand. Not his own private research, which, to Eve’s chagrin and Cassandra’s and Ezekiel’s fond amusement, was a lot more extensive.

After much cajoling and many promises he did not really intend to keep, even Ezekiel had been allowed out of bed again, under strict understanding that he would go back _immediately_ the moment Jenkins thought he should. That was why he was the only one sitting on a chair, clutching a cup of tea while Kiwi stood guard next to him to keep an eye out for any signs of weakness. Because Jenkins, blast the bloody bloke, had apparently figured out that Ezekiel might be able to fool him, he might even be able to fool his team, but Kiwi had a hawk’s eye that could see straight through any of Ezekiel’s _I’m okay no really_ bullshit. Ezekiel had no idea where she could have gotten that from, all he knew was that it was bloody inconvenient. Because he was _fine._ His arm barely hurt anymore and his skin still itched a little, but that was probably because of Jenkin’s funky medieval detergent or something. He was good as new, honest.

As he sipped his tea and gave Kiwi an encouraging smile, the rest of his team turned their attention towards Jake, who was leaning against the Clippings Book table, gesturing with his notebook as he continued: ‘Someone came up to her a couple of months ago, pretended to be one of the Serpent Brotherhood and told her that Jones was the one who killed her kid. Didn’t ID themselves besides showing the snake tattoo and vanished without a trace afterwards, which is not suspicious _at all_ and, and this is interesting, when I said ‘told her’, what Echidna said this mystery chick did, was that she showed her.’

‘How could she show her?’ Cassandra asked, a confused and unhappy frown on her face. ‘Ezekiel didn’t do anything, how could she show Echidna something that didn’t happen?’

‘Back up a bit before that,’ Eve said, abandoning her coffee cup to cross her arms. Standing ramrod straight, blue eyes hard and mouth set in a thin line, she looked every bit the stern stoic soldier. And a soldier who was not at all happy with the situation. ‘What did she say this woman looked like? Because if we’re talking suspicious, then _I don’t remember I only know she had a snake tattoo_ is pretty shady in my book.’

Ezekiel suddenly understood why Eve was not happy. ‘Wait,’ he butted in while straightening up in his chair because _what._ ‘She doesn’t remember?’

Jake shook his head. ‘Nope.’

\---

_‘Come over here,’ the lady said, ‘and I will show you.’_

_Echidna hissed low, a dangerous sound that had made many lesser creatures run fast and far away. She did not like this lady, even though she was a fellow Serpent. In fact, the tattoo had been the only reason she had allowed the lady into her house in the first place. That, and the six magical words ‘I know who killed your daughter’ was the only reason that Echidna now stood in the hallway of her villa, looking at a mirror while next to her, the lady waved her hands and muttered something she did not quite catch._

\---

‘Wait,’ Ezekiel said with a disbelieving huff. ‘Her _villa?’_

The look Jake gave him was the definition of deadpan. ‘Jones, you really think she’d spend three thousand years in a dank and nasty cave? Of course she got herself a nice place.’

‘Of course she did,’ Ezekiel muttered before Jake continued.

\---

 _As the lady waved her hands and clouds started to appear in the mirror, Echidna felt herself grow more and more uneasy. Not because of what she was about to see, but because of what she was not seeing now. She knew the lady was standing next to her, and she knew the lady was a Serpent but aside from that… she didn’t know. She couldn’t even_ see _the lady clearly_ , _and that was worrying because she was literally standing right next to her. She couldn’t see if the lady’s hair was black, or brown, or blonde, or if her eyes were blue, or green, or grey. The only thing that stood out clearly was the black band around the lady’s wrist, but Echidna couldn’t even see if the skin surrounding the tattoo was pale or dark. There was just nothing._

_Echidna had met many people over the centuries (albeit most of them very briefly), but she had never seen someone she couldn’t see._

\---

‘That’s not good,’ Cassandra said, making a face.

‘No, it ain’t,’ Jake agreed. Eve merely groaned, and Ezekiel knew exactly how she felt.

\---

_The clouds in the mirror opened up and the image it showed made Echidna instantly forget her uneasiness about the situation. Because there was a hand, a large and brutish hand, holding a dagger and plunging it into her daughter’s back with a force that made Echidna gasp. Then Lamia turned, and for one excruciating moment Echidna could see her daughter’s face looking right at her, her huge, dark eyes filled with pain. In breathless horror, she watched her Lamia stumble and fall, crash down to the floor while the blood drenched the back of her top._

_Before the shock had had time to fade, the image of her dying daughter clouded over and refocused. Now someone was laughing, someone Echidna didn’t know although that did not prevent her from hating him on sight. He looked young, younger than her daughter had been, and the way his eyes gleamed with laughter as he bared his white, white teeth in a grin, awoke a fury deep inside that burned hotter than fire. Her fist clenched and she tensed, more than prepared to punch a hole through the mirror and drag that hideous smiling creature back to her lair. It had been a long time since she had had any human flesh, but she would_ gladly _make an exception for this one._

_‘Find him,’ the lady said, although Echidna barely heard her over the rising tide of her wrath. ‘Find the one who can’t be touched by magic and avenge the murder of your daughter. But be wary, because he can be dangerous.’_

_Echidna looked at the the mirror again. By now, the black-haired boy was sitting in something that looked like a golf cart, cooing over a gargoyle. ‘He doessssn’t look dangeroussss,’ she hissed, her voice laden with ice cold contempt._

_‘No, he does not,’ the lady said with an amused little smile. Although how Echidna knew the smile was there if she could not even see the lady’s face, was another mystery. ‘But trust me. I met him once, and I barely made it out unscathed. So be on your guard.’_

\---

‘We’ve met her?’

It was Ezekiel who voiced the question written large on everybody’s faces. ‘Stone, correct me if I’m not making any sense, but I think we would remember meeting somebody we couldn’t see.’

‘I know,’ Jake said, abandoning his notebook to favor Ezekiel with a worried glare. Which was a new and slightly unnerving combination. ‘But as Echidna said, a Serpent would not lie to another member of the Brotherhood. We gotta assume she’s telling the truth.’

There was a moment of silence. Ezekiel stared at his feet, valiantly trying to quell the nauseating combination of dread, confusion and the remnants of Echidna’s venom. This quelling was not helped in the least by the fact that Kiwi sidled up next to him and wrapped an arm around his back, her hand a warm point of pressure through his shirt as she leaned into him. Not looking for protection, Ezekiel realized with another nauseating wave of shock, the way she would have done only a few days ago, but trying to provide it. _Jesus._

As he scrubbed his face with his hands, the silence drew on until a small voice said: ‘I don’t think she was a member of the Brotherhood.’

Ezekiel looked up. His minute relief about the fact that they were focusing on the identity of the mystery lady _because at least we are not touching the impervious to magic thing yet what the actual flying fuck_ disappeared entirely when he saw the hard look on Cassandra’s face and realization why she said what she had just said hit him like an blast of freezing air.

‘I don’t think she was a member of the Brotherhood,’ Cassandra repeated again, her nails digging into the skin of her arms and her lithe body tense as a bow. She swallowed as she took in the stunned faces around her and continued: ‘at least, I’ve never met her. And from the way… from the way you told it, she sounded like she would be pretty high placed.’ She swallowed again and took a deep breath, shaking her head when Jake softly said ‘Cassie…’

‘No, it’s okay,’ she said just as softly. ‘When I… when I was taken to their headquarters, I met with Lamia, and DuLaque, and some others. The leaders, I think they were, but there weren’t many of them. And they were all men, of about DuLaque’s age.’ She glanced at Jenkins for a second, who looked as stunned as the rest of them, and the hard look on her face made way for a small smile. ‘Or at least, his apparent age. Apart from them, it was mostly goons to do the dirty work.’

Jake looked like he was ready to bolt for the nearest hole in the ground, and Ezekiel knew exactly how he felt. Kiwi mainly looked puzzled because Ezekiel had never seen fit to tell her that the princess had started out as a traitor, however brief. And wasn’t _that_ going to be a fun conversation later.

 ‘I’m just saying,’ Cassandra finished with a shrug and an expression of someone who had not just bit a bullet, but chewed it up and swallowed it whole, ‘during the time I was with the Brotherhood, I definitely would have noticed  someone as powerful as this.’

‘Good point,’ Eve said weakly, picking up her coffee cup again and gripping it tight. ‘And it fits with the rest of her bullshit, like the mirror trick. And the magic thing.’  


‘Before we delve into that,’ Ezekiel managed, because _no,_ ‘I vote we let Echidna go.’

After all, they had promised her that they would. And besides that, Ezekiel strongly suspected that they had wrangled all the useful information out of the snake monster they were going to get (although Jake might disagree, but tough. Cowboy was just going to have to do his research the hard way.) There was no reason for her to stay in that cellar, and the sooner Ezekiel could put some distance between Echidna and Kiwi, the better. Best to set her free, point her in the direction of DuLaque and wish her good luck. And who knows. If Echidna could find the mystery lady while she was at it, so much the better, because Jake had been right: the mystery lady _had_ been messing with her, using her grief over Lamia to set her up against Ezekiel. And Ezekiel now knew firsthand that Echidna did not take kindly to people who wronged her. Wherever DuLaque and the mystery lady were hiding out, they had better start running, and fast.

‘I think that would be wise,’ Jenkins said, surprising Ezekiel a little. Not the fact that Jenkins agreed with him, which was rare enough in itself, but also because up until now, he had hung back at the edge of the group, a deep frown etched into his brow as Jake told the story of the magic mirror lady. He was also the only one who had not looked either confused or worried at the fact that Ezekiel was apparently magic-proof. In fact, his face had been curiously impassive, which was enough for a nagging suspicion to grow inside Ezekiel’s head. And if his suspicion was correct, he was going to have himself a quiet chat with Jenkins _very_ soon.

‘However,’ Jenkins continued, standing up swiftly and making his way over to his desk, ‘I do think we should give her at least some information about where she might be able to find DuLaque.’ He opened a drawer, rattled and clattered through its contents and fished out a heavy ring of keys. ‘And even though I am not sure of my father’s location myself, I will go and have a word with her before I bring her back upstairs. Mr. Stone, in the meantime, if you would be so kind as to set the Back Door to place a really, really long way away?’

‘Sure,’ Jake said, a little taken aback by the speed with which things were suddenly progressing. Ezekiel would bet quite a lot of pretty, shiny things that the _really long way away place_ would turn out to be rather close to a small, unassuming cemetery somewhere in the English countryside, but he didn’t comment. Some things just had to be done.

\---

For someone who was just _going to have a word,_ Jenkins took an awfully long time. He took so long that Kiwi got restless and started wandering through the Annex in search for more cool magical mysteries. After Cassandra had stopped her from going into Jenkins’ lab for the third time in fifteen minutes, Jake took over and told her she could help him set up the Back Door.

Of course, this then devolved into a game of ‘Name a cool place and see if you can get a Door there’, with Jake naming the tiniest places with the most ridiculous names, while Kiwi went for the big guns. Soon, the Annex was alive with the low hum and blue flickering light as New York made way for Qikiqtarjuaq, which was replaced by Paris, which disappeared and made way for Schmedeswurtherwesterdeich, which was replaced by New York, which finally made way for Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein. That last one, a farm in the north west of South Afrika, cracked Kiwi up so bad that Ezekiel had no choice but to proclaim Jake the winner and call an end to the game. Which by the way had nothing to do with the fact that after a while, Kiwi got far too handy in punching in coordinates and spinning the globe for Ezekiel’s liking. She was already way too curious for her own good; the last thing Ezekiel needed was his kid gallivanting all about the globe because she thought Helsinki sounded like a fun place to be.

So they waited. After a while, Jake and Eve started compiling a list of female-identifying creatures that could hide their appearance, Cassandra and Kiwi bent their heads over the question whether mermaids were real or not, and if so, if they were like the mermaids in the Little Mermaid (Cassandra) or whether they were horrible scaly sea monsters (Kiwi), while Ezekiel sat by and pretended not to notice the questioning looks that were thrown his way every other minute.

_Cannot be touched by magic. What the actual flying fuck._

 At long last, they heard footsteps come closer through the hallway, shortly followed by Jenkins who was in turn followed by Echidna. She looked a little unkempt, a bit rough around the edges, almost as if she had spent three nights in a cellar underground, but there was a defiant gleam in her eyes. Whatever she and Jenkins had discussed down there, it had apparently been enough to give her wrath a new and proper direction.

As Jake made his way over to the Back Door to set up the coordinates, Echidna looked around the room. Her gaze landed first on Ezekiel, who smiled in spite of himself. ‘Bye, Andi.’

‘My apologiessss, Ezzzzekiel Jonessss. And goodbye,’ Echidna replied, defiance briefly making way for a look that could almost be called abashed.

Ezekiel shook his head. ‘Nah, that’s okay. No harm done, so don’t worry about it.’ Never mind the fact that it _was_ worrying how no harm had been done, because Ezekiel strongly suspected that him not being stone cold dead was closely connected to this whole him being immune to magic thing.

Shoving that thought firmly down once again before Echidna could notice his discomfort, he watched as Kiwi stood up and made her way over to stand next to him. ‘Bye,’ she said, giving Echidna a little wave. ‘And I’m sorry about the knife.’

Echidna smiled. A real smile, not one to show off her fangs but an honest, amused little quirk of lips. ‘That’ssss quite alright, Emmie Jonessss. I heal fasssst enough. And may I commend you on your reflexssses.’

Ezekiel snorted but Kiwi gleamed with pride at the compliment. Indeed, Echidna’s arm showed no sign of Kiwi’s fruit knife dense, or, for that part, Jenkins’ ‘ingredient extraction’. Meanwhile, Jake gave the globe a whirl and a low hum filled the Annex as the Back Door lit up and Jenkins motioned Echidna into position. Before Jake opened the Door, however, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, which he handed to Echidna who took it with a puzzled frown on her face. ‘What’ssss thissss?’

‘It’s where you can find her,’ Jake replied softly. Echidna’s puzzlement increased for a moment, before realization hit and she looked at Jake with wide, golden eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said, carefully folding up the piece of paper until she could slide it up into her sleeve. ‘Thank you, kind Librarian.’

The fact that she had not gone out of her way to slip an s-sound in there, told Ezekiel more than anything just how shocked she was. He was a bit less surprised himself; he merely watched the exchange with a smile and shared a look with Cassandra that spoke volumes about rootin’ tootin’ cowboys with an unexpectedly soft side.

Eve, however, was a bit less patient. ‘Okay, time to go,’ she said in a brisk voice, striding over to the Back Door and opening it to reveal a cobblestoned alleyway. Echidna nodded. She stepped back, and after looking around one more time, turned to Jenkins. ‘I will ssssee to it,’ she said, and with that, she stepped through the Door and vanished.

The Back Door clicked shut. The blue light went out. The humming stopped. Echidna was gone.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jenkins knows more than he is letting on, but what else is new?

However, just because the snake monster had left the building did not mean that the case was closed and there was nothing left to do. Fifteen minutes after Echidna’s departure, Eve put down her second cup of coffee and started drawing up a new plan of action. ‘Jones and Cassandra, you’re on Brotherhood duty. Work together to find out who their members are and if any of them resemble Echidna’s mystery lady.’

Ezekiel caught the wince Cassandra tried to suppress and made a face. ‘Baird, you really think that’s necessary?’ he asked. ‘Cass already said she didn’t think this lady was a member.’

‘Can’t hurt to double check,’ Eve replied, meeting Ezekiel’s obstinate look head on until he relented. ‘Stone, you and I will continue working on Magical Creatures. Jenkins and Jones Junior… where is Jenkins?’

‘He is in his working room.’ That was Kiwi, who had perched herself upon the Clippings Book table so she had a better vantage point across the Annex. ‘He went there right after Andi went away.’

Now that she said it, Ezekiel did indeed remember Jenkins scurrying off towards his lab the moment the Back Door fell closed. That, in combination with the suspicion that was still niggling away in Ezekiel’s skull and the fact that he was not exactly looking forward to dredge up Cassandra’s false start as a Librarian again, was why he got up, slowly because some of his muscles still did not understand that he was _fine._ ‘I’ll go get him.’

\---

There were a lot of things that Jenkins could do. He was the finest swordsman of his age, which, if you came to think of it, was _any_ age really. And if there wasn’t a sword around, which happened more and more often in these annoyingly modern times, he could throw a punch as well. He could fight, he could joust, he could ride a horse, drive a car, fly a plane (and fly a sleigh but don’t tell Nick), he knew about as many languages as Jacob Stone and Flynn Carsen combined and even though he didn’t _need_ to eat, he could cook a mean steak and kidney pie. If he said it was a traditional recipe, he wasn’t lying.

But one thing Jenkins could not do, was wave his hands and make an image appear in the mirror. Even with fifteen hundred years of studying, dabbling, experimenting and facing off against more evils than anyone should ever encounter, he still couldn’t use magic by himself. He had been only human, after all, all those centuries ago. And even though he was immortal, whatever had made him that way had not seen fit to grant him any other powers. Which was a little infuriating when you came to think of it, but it was wat it was and it was why Jenkins had retreated to the dark, quiet safety of his lab. Because he couldn’t use magic, but that did not mean he didn’t have a couple of tricks up his sleeve. Tricks that, when you squinted in dim light, looked enough like magic that it didn't really make a difference.

Shutting the door firmly behind him, and then turning and _locking_ it, he took a moment to close his eyes, lean against the polished wood of the heavy door and let out an irritated sigh. After another couple of seconds of uncharitable muttering, he straightened up and started looking through the overcrowded shelves. They were packed with rows and rows of glass vials, clay pots, tin boxes, and wooden jars, while overhead bundles of dried herbs rustled as his hand wend by, lifting lids here and there as he carefully selected the ingredients he needed.

There was one thing to be said for the ritual he was about to perform: it was quite simple. All he needed was water from a holy well, to open up the mirror that he had already uncovered and placed on his workbench, where it was kept upright by stack of books; some crushed belladonna berries to call up the person he wanted to see; some extract of blessed thistle to keep said person _inside_ the mirror and to prevent her from opening up the portal all the way (a mistake you only make once, and he had paid for it dearly); and a sandalwood brush to apply the mixture to the mirror while he recited the incantation from the tome on his desk:

_Veni ad meum. Ostende mihi. Dice mihi, et non noce mihi._

It was a basic incantation, which meant nothing more than: Y _ou will come to me, You will show yourself to me. You will tell me. You will not harm me,_ but it sounded more impressive in Latin and that was medieval wizards for you. But most of all, he needed calm and quiet to focus because although the ritual might be easy enough to perform, what came next would be anything but.

He did _not_ need Ezekiel I Do Not Know What The Word ‘Locked’ Means Jones barging in and announcing: ‘You know, Baird is going to kill you if she finds out you already know exactly what’s going on.’

There was a splintering sound and a puff of yellow powder as Jenkins’ sudden start sent a small vial crashing down to the flagstone floor. _Blast_ the boy.

‘Mr. Jones, that was the last of the powdered saffron!’ he burst out, carefully putting the jar of water down on the table before that would go flying as well. With a huff and a glare, he plucked a dustpan and broom from their hook on the wall and held them out to the not at all abashed looking Ezekiel. ‘You can trust me to add that to the list of items you so kindly offered to procure for me.’

‘Sure mate, no problem,’ Ezekiel said with an indifferent shrug before he went down to his knees and started sweeping. If Jenkins had not been so worked up, he would have noticed immediately that this was quite unusually docile behavior. He also would have realized that it was probably not a good idea to let someone who still suffered from dizziness and occasional blackouts get down on the floor, because that meant they had to stand back up again and Ezekiel Jones being Ezekiel Jones, he would stand up a lot faster than his body could keep up with.

‘Oh for the love of God, Mr. Jones, give me that and come here. Sit down. No, I can assure you that you are not _fine_ and you will be even less _fine_ if you don’t do as I say and _sit down now.’_

As he parked a pale-faced and heavily breathing Ezekiel Jones into his lab chair, Jenkins did his best to manoeuver them both in such a way that he blocked Ezekiel’s line of sight to his desk. Or, rather, the line of sight to the mirror propped up on his workbench, and the supplies and spell book he had gathered next to it. It was too little, too late, however: after carefully breathing in and out a couple of times, Ezekiel looked up at him with dark eyes that were still disturbingly sharp. ‘You _do_ know what’s going on, don’t you?’ he said hoarsely. ‘And you’ve beetled off to go and solve it all on your own, while we’re all out there in the Annex working our asses off to find a lead. Oh mate, Baird is going to _kill_ you.’

Jenkins huffed. ‘Mr. Jones, I have faced far more fearsome things than Colonel Baird.’ Ezekiel raised an eyebrow and Jenkins paused before he admitted: ‘Though not many. And yes, I have ‘beetled off’, as you so eloquently put it, to put an end to all of this before it gets even more out of hand than it already has.’

Ezekiel leaned back into the chair and angled his head, catching sight of the mirror again before Jenkins realized what he was doing. ‘You’re going to call her. The lady Echidna was talking about.’

‘Yes.’

‘You know who she is.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re not going to tell us.’

‘No.’

‘Because…’

‘Because if I told you who she was, you would be up in arms with the moronic idea to go after her!’

It wasn’t a shout; despite his tension, Jenkins still managed to keep the volume of his outburst in check. But the sound did ring through the small space, echoing in the corners while he fixed Ezekiel with a look as cold and dark as steel. ‘Which would be exactly what she has been planning all along and which would only end in death and destruction all around, so forgive me for wanting to prevent it!’

The echoes died away and slow and heavy silence filled the lab before Ezekiel softly said: ‘You do realize that death and destruction is our _job,_ right?’

Jenkins groaned, because of course, the boy was right. And Jenkins had to admit, albeit grudgingly and _never_ out loud, that the Nuisances had become really rather good at what they did. But this was different. This, he had to deal with himself or else, at the end of the day, there would be nothing left but pain and tears. _His_ pain and tears, and he already had had enough of that to last him several lifetimes.

‘This is different, Mr. Jones,’ he said, scrubbing a hand over his face and leaning (not sagging) back against his workbench. ‘This time, you will have to trust me to handle it. And trust me when I say that you, in particular, do not want to go after this _lady_.’ He spat out the last word, which tasted foul and bitter on his tongue. _Lady. Of course._

‘Why not?’ Ezekiel asked, straightening up with a sudden grin. ‘Didn’t she say I was invulnerable?’

If the grin was a bit tense and looked more like a grimace, Jenkins didn’t notice. He merely glared and reached out to ever so lightly tap Ezekiel’s shoulder, making the boy hiss with pain and shrink back into the chair with a violent wince that turned the hiss into a groan.

‘You are not invulnerable, Mr. Jones,’ Jenkins said, gazing back calmly as Ezekiel shot daggers at him through narrowed eyes. ‘And I do not have enough mithridrate left to help you, _any of you_ , should you decide to try and ignore what I just said. So, if you would please be kind enough to leave and let me do what needs to be done, I think we will all sleep the better for it.’

Ezekiel didn’t move.

Jenkins rolled his eyes. ‘Unless there is something else you wanted to discuss, other than my imminent demise at the hands of Colonel Baird?’

Ezekiel still didn’t move. But as the silence dragged on, the pained glare in his eyes gave way to something else. Gave way to a different kind of hurt, mixed with a vulnerability that wasn’t fear, exactly, but it was close. Jenkins, who watched as Ezekiel chewed the inside of his bottom lip for a moment, got the distinct impression that he would have to tread very, very carefully through the coming conversation, lest the boy’s unease would blossom and grown into a full-blown panic.

‘You knew.’

The words were soft, but landed heavy in the quiet of the room. Jenkins didn’t need to ask what Ezekiel meant. He didn’t bother to deny it, either. ‘Yes. I did.’

The straightforward approach seemed to work: Ezekiel’s shoulders started to relax, ever so slightly, as he asked: ‘When?’

Oh drat. Ezekiel was not going to like this answer, but even so, the memory of his first mini heart attack in centuries still made Jenkins’ mouth quirk up. ‘I started to suspect something… _unusual_ about you the moment you came prancing through the Back Door, singing off-key carols and asking me where I kept the ingredients to make Christmas cookies.’

‘But that worked,’ Ezekiel said and paused, brows knit together in a frown. ‘That was magic that worked on me. Made me… it made me give away money.’

That last part was said with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose that made Jenkins chuckle as he shook his head. ‘Mr. Jones, Nicholas’ hat should have obliterated you the moment it touched your head. Do you honestly believe that any mortal could withstand all that power? All that goodwill? It even affected DuLaque, do you not think it should have had slightly more impact on you than give you the urge to spread good cheer wherever you went?’

‘Well, if you put it like that,’ Ezekiel muttered, unfolding his hands, which had been clasped tightly together in his lap, to rest his elbows on his knees and hide his face for a moment. In the silence, Jenkins waited patiently, watching the boy like a hawk just in case he did something… Ezekiel.

‘I thought it would’ve been the apple,’ Ezekiel finally said, looking up again and for a moment, Jenkins was reminded just _how young_ the youngest of the three Librarians really was.

‘If that was the worst version of yourself, Mr. Jones, then I am the Lady Guinevere,’ he replied, drawing a weak laugh from Ezekiel. ‘But you are partly correct. The manner in which you were not affected by the apple, did confirm my suspicion that magic did not seem to have the same effect on you as it usually has on others.’

Ezekiel did not reply, so Jenkins went on: ‘After the incident with the apple, I… kept an eye on you. I did not know what caused your curious condition, and I still don’t,’ he said when it looked like Ezekiel wanted to voice that question, ‘but I did notice that on every mission where the four of you were laid under some kind of spell, it either affected you differently, or not at all.’

‘I couldn’t just have been lucky?’ Ezekiel asked, with a weak attempt at a grin. ‘You know, I’m a very lucky person. Maybe that’s what it was.’

‘It could have been, once or twice,’ Jenkins conceded. ‘But as you got luckier and luckier, I… might have taken some steps to rule out that particular factor. I do consider myself a scientist, after all.’

Ezekiel Jones might not have an IQ of 190, but it did not take him long to connect the dots and figure out what Jenkins was not saying. Because yes, Jenkins might have performed one or two tiny experiments just to see whether his suspicions were correct. Such as ask him to retrieve the flute of the Pied Piper from the Library so Jenkins could ‘deal with a rat infestation in the basement’, but _without_ mentioning the fact that said flute needed to be handled very, very carefully. And with gloves on.

Or slip a tiny little bit of potion into his morning tea, a harmless little concoction which would have done nothing but turn Ezekiel’s earlobes a fetching blue. If it had worked. Which it hadn’t.

To say that Ezekiel was not thrilled about this, was an understatement. As he sat motionless, breathless with shock and wavering between outrage at the fact that he had been an unwitting guinea pig and the unholy blasphemy of Jenkins messing with his tea, Jenkins cleared his throat. ‘If it helps,’ he said, in a poor attempt at diffusing the imminent explosion, ‘I did make myself into the control group, to make sure everything was in order and it was not the artefacts that were malfunctioning.’

It wasn’t enough to forestall Ezekiel’s outburst entirely. From the tight lips and flashing eyes in an otherwise pale face, Jenkins could see that he would still be taken to task for what he did at a later point in time. But it was enough to make Ezekiel take a deep breath and say: ‘Wait. Was that why you were walking around with blue ears for about a week? You said it was an experiment that had gone sideways.’

Jenkins hummed. ‘In a way, it was. And in a way, it was an experiment that had gone as expected, though not as I’d hoped.’

‘And you have no idea why,’ Ezekiel said, after another long moment in which Jenkins could see him almost physically swallowing his fury. Credit where credit was due: Jenkins had not expected Ezekiel to be able to save a shouting match for later when there were more important things to discuss.

‘I regret to say I don’t, Mr. Jones,’ he said. ‘Of course, there are various possibilities, but most of those come with clues of their own. For example, if, the gods help us all, you had been a minor deity or even a demigod, signs of that would have manifested themselves by now. Unmistakably.’

Ezekiel looked mildly intrigued, then disappointed, and Jenkins went on: ‘Then there are various blessings and spells that a person might receive, mostly in their infancy.’

‘Like Sleeping Beauty,’ Ezekiel supplied, to which Jenkins made a face. ‘Yes, exactly. Although crude, that is a good example. But, most of those come at a price and more often than not, that price is a severely shortened life expectancy. Something that is usually _not_ mentioned to the parents of the child in question, for some reason.’

Ezekiel inhaled. ‘When you say _severely shortened_ …’

‘How old was Sleeping Beauty again, when she pricked herself on the spindle?’

Ezekiel exhaled again. ‘Right.’

‘As I said,’ Jenkins continued, ‘such a thing would have manifested by now. And except for the fact that your apparent immunity exists, my research has not provided me with any further answers. Of course, I know too little about your past to do any more research than I have done until now…’

He stopped, because Ezekiel was glaring again and Jenkins could hear the ice starting to crack under his feet. It was a shame, but only to be expected: getting any personal information out of Ezekiel Jones was like picking nits out of a tiger's pelt. You only made it out unscathed if you chose the right moment, if you were very careful, you knew what you were doing and, most importantly, you knew when to stop and start running.

‘… but maybe we can look into that later,’ he finished smoothly. ‘All that matters for now, is that apparently, word of your curious condition has gotten out. Which is not good, if you understand my meaning.’

Ezekiel might be young, but he had seen enough of the world to understand what usually happened to people with curious conditions. ‘It means I’m gonna be a target,’ he said flatly. 'It means... it means Kiwi's gonna be a target.'

Jenkins nodded. ‘I’m afraid you will be perceived as either a threat, or a challenge. And I do not know which of those would be preferable.’

Judging by his grimace, neither did Ezekiel. ‘And this lady?’ he asked, looking at Jenkins with a seriousness that was so unusual, it was terrifying. ‘Did she send a murderous snake monster after my kid because I’m a threat, or a challenge?’

‘My guess is, it’s a bit of both,’ Jenkins said, turning around and giving the mirror a baleful look. That was true, of course, but it wasn’t as true as the _real_ reason, which he did not want to voice out loud: _because she thought it would be fun._ He could imagine Ezekiel’s response to that all too well, and the boy was upset enough as it was. With good reason, of course, but Jenkins saw no reason to add more grief than strictly necessary. ‘But, Mr. Jones, I do believe I have a sliver of good news that has come out of all of this.’

He turned back to Ezekiel and smiled the broad and slightly evil smile of someone who is ready to grab the popcorn, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. ‘Because as you might suspect, Echidna does not take kindly to people using her for their own ends.’

‘Yeah, I thought she wouldn’t,’ Ezekiel muttered, too wrapped up in a dark cloud to share in Jenkins’ unholy glee.

‘ _And_ the fact that she attacked you without reason, means she now owes you a debt,’ Jenkins went on. ‘A debt which I have already taken the liberty to collect on. I did not think you would mind.’

He paused, both for effect and to make sure Ezekiel was listening to him, instead of the whirlwind of questions and thoughts and doubts that were flying through his mind. It took a few long seconds, but then Ezekiel looked up, still with a dark frown on his face but with his shoulders relaxing infinitesimally. ‘What did you do?’ he asked, his voice low with tension.

‘Let me put it this way,’ Jenkins said, his evil grin softening to a comforting smile. It looked a little off, due to disuse and all, but the effort had its effect: now Ezekiel sat up even straighter, attention now fully focused on what was coming. ‘I do not know what your plans for Miss Emmie are, but whether you will take her back to London or let her stay here, you will not have to worry for her safety any longer. She will be quite well protected from now on.’

\---

_‘One more thing,’ Jenkins said, the heavy iron keys dangling from his hand as he stood up. ‘You attacked a man who has done you no harm. And even though you are not entirely to blame, that does not mean that you do not owe him a debt.’_

_‘I undersssstand,’  Echidna said calmly. ‘What would you have me do, Galeassss?’_

_There was the iron sound of a key in a lock as the door swung open. However, before Echidna could walk out, she found the doorway blocked by Jenkins, who stood there, unmoving as a knight protecting his liege._

_‘You will go,’ he said. ‘You will leave this place, and not come back. You may go and look for my father, maybe even find_ her _and if you manage to do so, then I wish you the very best of luck in what may follow. But there is another thing you will do. You will go and spread the word that the Librarian’s daughter is not to be harmed. Spread the word that those who try, those who even attempt to touch one hair on her head, will find themselves facing the full wrath of the Library itself. However, those who protect her, those who chose to shield her from such harm, they will find themselves in favor with the Library. So whoever wishes to challenge the Librarian, for whatever reason, best choose their path wisely, lest it be the last thing they ever do.’_

_The cave seemed to grow darker for a moment, while Echidna went a little pale. She swallowed, then nodded. ‘I will ssssee to it.’_

\---

For one heart-stopping moment, Jenkins thought Ezekiel might actually burst into tears right there in his lab. After he had sat gaping at Jenkins in mute incomprehension for a good ten seconds, he slumped forward into his chair, burying his face in his hands as all the built-up tension seemed to leave him in one giant rush of breath. He sat motionless, barely even breathing and if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was trembling all over, Jenkins might have felt the urge to rush to the boys side to check if he hadn’t fainted again. As it was, he leaned back against his desk and waited patiently until the quiet storm had passed.

At last, Ezekiel took a huge, shaky breath and dragged a hand over eyes that were red-rimmed, but still, miraculously dry. ‘Thank you,’ he said hoarsely, in a voice as rough as ground up gravel. ‘Jenkins, _thank…_ shit bloody fucking hell, Jenkins, _thank you.’_

Now he _was_ crying, slow tears slipping over his cheeks and leaving a shimmering trail while his voice started to splinter with gratitude and relief. Jenkins, who wasn’t good with the outpouring of emotions at the best of times and especially not now, let Ezekiel sit there for a while, muttering a few more chosen swear words while furiously blinking and wiping his eyes, before he decided that it was time to put an end to this.

‘Mr. Jones, it was the least I could do, he said curtly, and bless him, for once, Ezekiel understood his tone of voice perfectly. He nodded, took one more gulp of air, nodded again and straightened up. ‘But it’s time to go, right?’ he said, the ghost of his usual grin returning. ‘You’re finally kicking me out?’

Jenkins raised an eyebrow in the direction of the patiently waiting mirror on his workbench. ‘I still have some things to do, Mr. Jones.’

Ezekiel nodded again. ‘Right. Got it,’ he said, as he slowly stood up, grabbing hold of the back of the chair for balance for a moment. Emotional balance, rather than physical, Jenkins knew, but it was still a sign of vulnerability that he had never seen in Ezekiel Jones before. Right before that realization hit him, however, Ezekiel turned in the doorway, a crooked grin now firmly in place again. ‘Just one more thing, and then I’m out of your hair, OK?’

Jenkins huffed, feigning impatience as best he could. ‘What is it, Mr. Jones?’

Ezekiel hesitated, the smirk slipping for a second before he said: ‘Look, I don’t know if Kiwi… if she’s got whatever it is that I’ve got, if, if she’s inherited it somehow or… I don’t know. I’m not even sure I wanna know. But.’ He paused and threw Jenkins a stern look. ‘No. Experimenting. On. My. Kid. You got that, mate? Or _you_ will find yourself facing the full wrath of Ezekiel Jones. Understood?’

Jenkins nodded. ‘Understood, Mr. Jones.’

A nod in return, the sound of a door clicking shut, followed by the sound of a lock being picked back into place and Jenkins was alone in the dark, quiet safety of his lab.

A glimmer of light caught his eye and he glared at the mirror. ‘And now I suppose it’s your turn.’


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the case is (almost) closed, but still the angst is ramped up. Although, is it still angst if you offset it with all kinds of magical creatures? Not sure.

There were quite a lot of things in that conversation with Jenkins that had shaken Ezekiel to his core, but as he slowly made his way back to the Annex, one of them kept revolving through his mind like a way too catchy pop jingle.

_The Librarian’s daughter is not to be harmed. Those who protect her, will find favor with the Library._

That, more than anything. More than the revelation of him being somehow immune to magic, more than the fact that Jenkins had apparently experimented on him without his knowledge or consent (and yes, he was _definitely_ going to yell at Jenkins about that at some point, when he felt a bit less wobbly), made him pause, right before he reached the Annex. It was empty by now; Ezekiel had no clue where everybody had gone, but at the moment, he couldn’t care less. In fact, he was glad no one was there to see him. He didn’t know how he looked, but he could guess, and he had had more than enough of well-meaning ‘are you alrights’ and ‘are you sure you don’t need to go back to beds’.

He was alright. Except for the fact that Jenkins had somehow gotten a hold of one of his greatest fears and eradicated it like it was no biggie, he was just fine.

  _I will see to it. Fucking hell._

Standing in the dark of the hallway, half leaning, half sagging against a bookshelf, Ezekiel took a moment to close his eyes and breathe in and out, once, twice three times while he let the realization of what Jenkins had done fully hit him like Miley Cyrus’ wrecking ball.

_Between Poppins and Andi, she’s gonna be the safest kid in the whole damn world. And she’s probably gonna make some really nasty looking friends along the way. Fucking bloody hell._

A sound escaped him that was not really a laugh, not really a sob. With a few chosen words, Jenkins just relieved him from four years of fretting, and Ezekiel finally had to admit that he might be losing his balance just a tiny little bit. Because the knowledge that Kiwi was now as safe as a ten year old in this day and age could be was great. The knowledge that Ezekiel did not have to worry about magical monsters coming after his kid anymore, was more beautiful and more precious than any piece of jewelry he’d ever stolen.

However, it also meant that he now had to face the question that he had been avoiding since the moment he decided to bring Kiwi to the Annex.

_I do not know what your plans for Miss Emmie are,_ Jenkins had said. And up until now, Ezekiel’s answer would have been very clear: eventually, Kiwi would have to go back to London. It would undeniably suck for everybody around, but there were multiple and good and valid reasons to not let her stay. Safety being only one of them, although it was on top of the list.

But if safety no longer was an issue. Or, rather, if safety was no longer such a _pressing_ issue.

Ezekiel might have to reconsider.

\---

‘I don’t want to go back,’ Emmie said quietly.

It was cold here, near the artificial lake. Cold and clammy, which was why she was wearing one of Cassandra’s old coats, which was in turn covered with a yellow oilskin that was about three sizes too big for her. But neither coat nor oilskin could help the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach as she walked along the water’s edge, lugging the bright red bucket along behind her.

The dark water next to her rippled and then opened up to reveal the emerald green head of Nessie Jr. Yellow eyes the size of a bowling ball fixed on Emmie for a second before she spotted the bucket. ‘Yrrp?’

‘Yeah, I got it,’ Emmie sighed. ‘Hang on, I gotta find the right spot for you first.’

She dragged herself and the bucket another fifty feet before she reached the feeding pier, a wooden structure that was built into the lake so she only had to tip the bucket down into the water, without running the risk of falling in herself. As she did so, watching the flood of grey and silver fish slide out of the bucket and into the lake in a wet, slick sliver, Nessie yrrpped excitedly, rising up and diving back into the water with a giant splash and a rush of water that would have drenched Emmie if she hadn’t been wearing the oilskin.

The fish disappeared into the murky darkness, as did Nessie. Emmie grabbed the bucket, a bit tighter than strictly necessary, and put it back upright. Then, hesitating for just a moment, she sat down on the soaking wet wood of the pier, her legs dangling inches above the surface of the lake.

‘I don’t want to go back,’ she repeated, the pit in her stomach growing colder and more painful as she said it.

Nessie resurfaced, the tail of one of the fish sticking out of her mouth like the world’s weirdest cigarette. ‘Yrrp?’

Emmie didn’t know if Nessie had actually understood what she was saying, or if she was just asking for more fish. From the intelligent look in Nessie’s eyes, she suspected it might be the latter. For a supposedly prehistoric creature, Nessie had shown herself to be far more intelligent than Emmie would have thought.

Nessie swam closer, drenching Emmie’s boots as her huge form caused large waves to roll against the pier. Emmie held out a hand, and when Nessie was within reach, started stroking down the dark green scales. They were remarkably smooth, though cold to the touch. She yelped as Nessie decided to return the favor and blow a wet kiss against her cheek. Or rather, down Emmie’s neck, because Nessie’s aim was a little off.

‘Yrrp,’ said Nessie, before she left Emmie to check out the empty bucket just in case it was hiding some more fish. This time, Emmie did know what she meant.

‘I know,’ she muttered. ‘But it’s not the same.’

\---  
  
If Ezekiel wanted to think, he did not want to be at the Annex. Awesome though the place might be, it was not exactly conducive to quiet introspection, with exploding Clippings Books, havoc-wreaking magic and far too nosy colleagues slash partners just waiting to interrupt his thoughts.

No. If Ezekiel wanted to think, he had to go somewhere else. Thankfully, years of traveling the globe had led him to discover the perfect spot, and he was just punching in the coordinates when he heard footsteps come to a halt behind him.

‘Where you runnin’ off too, Jones?’

It took some effort, but Ezekiel managed to bite back the ‘none of your bloody business, cowboy’ that was elbowing its way to the tip of his tongue. Instead he paused a moment before he straightened up and turned around, not bothering to put on an unaffected mask this time. Jake would see right through that anyway, and playing it open and vulnerable might save them both some squabbling.

Ezekiel did not want to squabble. Not right now.

It seemed to work; Jake’s stern expression softened when he saw the look on Ezekiel’s face and Ezekiel breathed out. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ he said simply, trying and failing to keep the wobble out of his voice. ‘Could you… could you watch Kiwi for a bit? I… this shouldn’t take too long, I promise.’

‘Sure,’ Jake said with a shrug. ‘’s not like we’ve done anything else for the past few days.’

Even though Ezekiel could see Jake regretted the words the moment he said them, he still felt a flare of anger burn the last of his remaining energy away. ‘Stone, please,’ he said, turning back to the globe before he would start screaming. ‘Just, please. Don’t.’

In a way, the snipe was comforting. If Jake was starting to be pissed at him again, it could only mean that the case was closed, the immediate threat had gone and Ezekiel was no longer in danger of dropping dead on the spot. And if Ezekiel’s mind hadn’t already been filled up with a whole host of other swirling thoughts, he might even have welcomed the chance to shout at the cowboy a little. After all, working out their issues one shout out at a time usually served them both quite well. But right now, it was so far from the right moment that it nearly came full circle to being the _perfect_ moment again.

‘Please don’t,’ he repeated, when Jake remained quiet.

There were footsteps again, and they were not retreating as Ezekiel had expected. Instead they were coming closer until he felt the solid presence of Jake at his side. Not touching, but close enough that Ezekiel only had to shift an inch and he would be pressed right up against Jake’s chest. If it had been the right moment for that, which it was most definitely not.

‘If you gotta go, you go,’ Jake rumbled, his breath ghosting warm across Ezekiel’s cheek. ‘But if you end up face down in a ditch somewhere, I’m not fishing you out.’

‘I won’t,’ Ezekiel muttered.

‘Also,’ Jake continued in a lighter tone of voice, ‘if you don’t want Cassie and me to steal your kid, you’d better get your ass back here as soon as you can.’

Ezekiel turned and glared, into Jake’s face that was just inches from his. Blue eyes glared back just as fiercely, but with the barest spark of laughter hidden deep inside.

‘Don’t even think about it, cowboy.’

‘Don’t you try me, Jones.’

\---  
  
‘I know why he wants me to go back,’ Emmie told Peggy, the 6 foot tall gleaming white horse with wings the size of two cars.

Peggy snorted softly and lowered her head so that Emmie could clip on the halter. When this was fastened, Emmie took the rope, clipped this on as well and led Peggy out of her stable and into the pasture, where her friend Suzie was already waiting, impatiently prancing and whinnying past the wooden fence.

‘He thinks it’s safer,’ Emmie continued as she opened the gate, nudging Suzie out of the way and leading Peggy on to the grass. ‘He thinks it’s more dangerous to be here than be with Poppins, but he’s _wrong.’_

Suzie whinnied and Peggy flapped her wings in sympathy as they both turned to look at Emmie with soft, brown eyes. ‘He’s wrong,’ Emmie repeated a bit less vehemently but in a more bitter tone of voice. ‘He’s wrong because Andi didn’t come here, she came to London. And here there’s Mr. Jenkins and Colonel Baird and Uncle Jake and it’s _not_ more dangerous to be here, it’s _not.’_

Emmie was aware that she was talking to empty air by now, because the pegasi had taken off in a thundering gallop to the other end of the pasture. When they reached the end, they took flight and for a moment, Emmie forgot all about her dad, or the impeding end of her life at the Annex, or how upset she was supposed to be about it all. The sight of two massive horses, one gleaming white and one pitch black, gliding through the air as graceful as a bird on the wind, will do that. They rose through the air, further and further away until they were merely specks in the cloudless sky overhead, before they slowly descended again, coming closer and closer until they hit the ground simultaneously with a thud that shook the earth.

They trotted back to Emmie, whinnying and snorting happily, and Emmie couldn’t help but grin. ‘That was _epic,’_ she told them as they came to a halt in front of her. One silky soft nose was pressed against her neck in response, while Peggy started burrowing through Emmie’s pockets for the pouch of birdseed she’d hidden there. ‘Hey, hang on,’ Emmie protested, laughing and pushing the horse’s head away. ‘Let me at least clean your hooves first!’

Peggy pranced back obediently. Emmie turned around to go fetch the bucket with brushes and hoof picks, trying not to think about how this might be the last time she got to brush a pegasus.

\---  
  
Bangkok was one of those cities that never slept, and had been the number one destination for people looking for an escape, no matter how temporary, for a long time now. Ezekiel had been there many times for that exact reason, partaking in many (though not all) of the vices the city had to offer. But right now, for once, he wasn’t looking for sex, or drugs or a quick get-rich scheme.

Right now, he was making his way through one of the rowdier districts, elbowing drunk tourists out of the way and firmly discouraging anybody pursuing a quick get-rich scheme of their own. The noise surrounding him was a blessing: the music pouring out of the bars and clubs was so loud, the roar of traffic so all-encompassing, that for ten heavenly minutes he couldn’t hear himself think. It was a trick that usually worked for him: if he ever felt himself start to chase his own thoughts, he would smother them to death in a blanket of noise and sensory overloading. Only then he could start back up again, calmly and logically, and systematically work his way through whatever problem was at hand. A brief reprieve had been just what he needed, as he pushed through the throng into a quieter street and then turned left, into an almost deserted one.

The bar he finally entered was tiny. It was quiet. It was almost empty, except for two locals silently sipping their drinks and a third one watching some kind of Thai soap on TV from behind the bar. The man looked up as Ezekiel entered, but otherwise did not move. He didn’t need to. Ezekiel wasn’t here to get a drink (drinking in his state would be a spectacularly bad idea), and this place did not need to sell drinks to survive. Something about alternative revenue streams, and if you did not know what that meant, this was not a bar for you.

Ezekiel closed the door behind him, shutting off the lights of the street. The bar went dark again. In the gloom, he made his way to the back, to the last booth in the farthest corner, and sat down.

Time to think.

\---  
  
‘And I know I’ve got to go back to school,’ Emmie said, while scrubbing the soot out of the dragon pen. This was not something she was supposed to do on her own, but Jenkins was still nowhere to be seen and the alternative was fetching books from the Library for Uncle Jake and Cassandra. Emmie would rather risk a couple of burn blisters than lugging books back and forth, cool as those books might be.

The dragon huffed, a tiny plume of smoke curling upwards from one of its nostrils. It was smaller than Emmie thought it would be, about the size of a large cat. It was also covered in sapphire blue scales, trimmed with golden spines on its back and tail, so that it glittered like expensive jewelry whenever it moved. It was currently not moving: at the moment, it was curled up on to a fire-resistant pillow, watching Emmie clean its pen with one dark, bottomless eye.

Emmie dunked the brush into the pail with a splash and gave the brick wall another vigorous scrub. ‘But I could go to school here, and I know the schools here aren’t _as_ good, but who cares if we live in a magic Library?’

The dragon yawned. Not only did this reveal a mouthful of very large, very sharp teeth, it also made the room smell like burnt out embers. Emmie sneezed and turned around, glaring at the dragon. ‘Don’t do that while I’m here, please.’

Emmie hadn’t known that dragons could look bashful, but apparently, they could. ‘Thank you,’ she said, before turning back to the wall. ‘I would miss Poppins,’ she conceded after scrubbing in silence for a minute. The dragon, almost lulled to sleep by the rhythmic sound of wet bristles against the wall, lifted its head and gave a curious ‘hngg?’

‘But we could go visit him whenever we wanted, and anyway, Poppins is cool and I love him, but.’

Emmie fell silent. The brush fell to the floor with a wet clatter. The dragon, sensing that there was something more expected than sitting and watching from a distance, slowly got up and ambled its way over. It wriggled its way around Emmie, until it could clamber up into her lap where it sat like a very warm, very weird kind of lapdog as Emmie wrapped her arms tight around its lithe, scaly form.

‘Poppins is cool,’ she whispered wetly as the dragon nuzzled closer. ‘But he’s not my dad.'

\---  
  
It hadn’t taken long for Ezekiel to reach a decision, and he hated it. Hated it with every fiber of his being, even though every fiber of his being also knew that it was the right decision. It had been nice to entertain the alternative, for a while, but in the end. In the end it just wasn’t possible. Not right now anyway, possibly not ever, and even though everything inside him rallied at the thought, he knew what he had to do.

As he made his way out of the bar, back into the busy streets, he barely heard the noise this time. He didn’t notice the people, or the traffic, or the lurid signs along the buildings. Instead, he made his way back to the Back Door in a numb state of determination. Walking back seemed to take ages, and mere seconds at the same time, but at last, he was back in the dingy, reeking alleyway where the emergency exit of a sleazy club glowed an inviting blue.

His hand on the doorknob, Ezekiel hesitated one last moment as a last sliver of doubt broke through the shell of his resolve. One last _I don’t want to, please don’t make me do this_ moment in which he almost, almost wavered. God, he wanted to waver. He wanted to doubt, he wanted to be able to reconsider until the cows came home, but if he did that, he would probably be stuck in Bangkok for years, decades, centuries, without reaching a decision.

So he took a deep breath, turned the knop, opened the Door and stumbled back into the (still mercifully empty) Annex. As he skidded to a halt, Ezekiel didn’t give himself time to look around, or to think. Instead he stood up, steeled himself one last time and strode into the hallway like a soldier marching to the battlefield.

It was time to send Kiwi back to London.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst, more angst, drama, tears and we and in a massive pile of schmoop. Just the way it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, don't panic: I haven't forgotten or abandoned this fic. It's just that writing this chapter has been like pulling teeth and the first half has been through at least three rewrites before I was even remotely satisfied. So I apologize for the delay, and hopefully this chapter more than makes up for it!

Nessie Jr. had been fed, Peggy and Suzie had had their exercise for the day and the dragon pen had been cleaned beyond recognition. The only chore now left for Emmie to do while she waited for her dad to come back, was fetching books for Jake and Cassandra. They had given her a list, Cassandra had given her a rundown of the Dewey Decimal system and now Emmie was trudging her way through the massive maze of the Library, alternately pushing and dragging the ancient book cart along with her. The wheels of the cart squeaked and were not very cooperative, so progress was slow, but Emmie didn’t mind. Negotiating the cart along the rows and rows of shelves, looking for the titles on the list she held clutched in her hand, only meant that she wouldn’t have to think too much. She was _busy_ and she was doing something _important,_ so she had to _focus._ She couldn’t let her mind wander off to, say, evil, cruel, heartless dads who were about to send her back to her lonely, miserable life in London.

No. she couldn’t do that, because she had to find _Glitter and glamour: tricks of the Fae explained, by Shelley, Shelley and Byron_ for Uncle Jake. And then she had to find _Hiding in the grass: the origins and organization of the Serpent Brotherhood, by Gustav von Erickson,_ for Cassandra. That was far more important. That was the only thing she should be focusing on right now. The _only_ thing.

Not the anger bubbling away inside her at the unfairness of it all. Not the speech she had been preparing for over an hour now, listing all the arguments and reasons she could come up with to convince her dad to let her stay. Not even her backup plan of going back to London, and then secretly calling Mr. Jenkins for a door back to the Library, where she would spend the rest of her days as a stowaway, sleeping in the reading nooks and stealing whatever food she might need out of the Annex kitchen.

Emmie couldn’t think about that now, because she had books to find and bring back. There was no time for anything else.

Until she heard her footsteps approach. They resounded through the Library like a bell, which was odd since her dad’s sneakers usually did not make that much noise.

Emmie froze, but only for a moment. The handle of the book cart clattered to the ground as she shot out from between the bookshelves, propelled by an almost physical manifestation of the word _No._ With her heart thudding almost out of her chest, she ran out into the main Library aisle and skidded to a halt right in front of her dad. ‘I am _not_ going back!’

\---

Ezekiel might have known that Kiwi had already figured out what was about to happen. And of course he hadn’t really expected her to go quietly. He would have been more than surprised, and maybe even a little worried if she hadn’t put up a fight.

That did not mean he was happy to see Kiwi standing in front of him, eyes blazing and mouth set in a thin line as she repeated: ‘I’m _not_!’

Ezekiel sighed. In a way, fury was better than tears. Tears he had already seen way too often in the past few days, and dealing with Kiwi temper tantrums was something he was good at. Or at least, it was something he had more than enough experience with.

‘Kiwi,’ he said, looking down at his furious daughter with a weary expression, ‘come on. Let’s go sit down first, okay?’

He reached out to take Kiwi by the shoulder and lead her towards one of the reading desks that lined the aisle, but she wrenched herself away. ‘No!’

 ‘Kiwi, please.’

‘No!’ Kiwi took another step back, scrawny chest heaving and fists clenched so tight, her knuckles shone white. ‘I’m not sitting down and we’re not gonna talk because then you’re gonna tell me that I have to go back to London and I’m _not_ going back, I’m _not_! I’m staying _here_!’

The last word was almost a sob, something which only seemed to make her more furious. Ezekiel opened his mouth to reply, but then thought better of it. There would be no reasoning with Kiwi in this state. Usually when she got herself worked up like this, he would leave her alone to cool off for a bit, and then come back later to talk about whatever problem was at hand in a calm, collected manner.

Unfortunately, that was not going to work this time. So instead of trying to argue further, and instead of leaving, he made his way over to one of the reading desks and pulled out a chair.

‘C’mere,’ he said softly, after he sat down. ‘Kiwi, I know you don’t wanna talk.’ He couldn’t blame her; he didn’t particularly want to have this conversation either. ‘But please. Come here and sit down, ‘cause like it or not, we’re gonna have to.’

Kiwi did not respond, except by somehow managing to look even more mulish than before. However, before Ezekiel could go in for attempt number two, there was the sound of the Library door being opened behind him. Kiwi’s eyes widened, but Ezekiel’s heart sank as he turned around and saw Cassandra walking towards them with an unusually grave look on her face.

‘Cass, not to be rude, but we’re kinda in the middle of something here,’ he said, unable to keep the bitter tone out of his voice. He loved Cassandra to bits, he really did, but he could just about guess why she was here and Ezekiel really, _really_ wished she wouldn’t. This was going to be difficult enough as it was; he did not need his partners weighing in on the decision to break Kiwi’s heart as well as his own.

Cassandra wasn’t fazed. ‘I know,’ she said, taking up position behind Kiwi, who was looking less furious and more hopeful by the second. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

\---

‘Guys, come on. You’re really gonna try and stop me?’

‘Jones, that’s not up to us. You’re her father, if you say she has to go back we can’t stop you.’

‘We just really, really don’t want you to send her back. Also, what Jake means is we will stop you.’

Emmie had never heard sweeter words in her life. Of course, she hadn’t been _meant_ to hear them. Right before Cassandra took her dad away to a private nook somewhere deep in the recesses of the Library, Emmie’s dad had looked at Emmie. Emmie couldn’t really read the expression on his face. Probably because there were so many of them at the same time, but after a beat of silence, her dad had nodded to Cassandra and told Emmie that this was going to be a code 007 before getting out of his chair and following Cassandra further into the Library.

‘What’s a code 007?’ Emmie heard Cassandra ask, right before they disappeared from view. Emmie didn’t hear her dad’s answer, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to obey the code 007 this time anyway. It meant that she _absolutely_ was _not_ allowed to eavesdrop on whatever conversation her dad was having, be it on the phone or in person. Not that she’d _ever_ do that otherwise, of course, but for some reason, her dad still thought they’d needed a code for that. And since her dad used to work as a spy, and spies cannot talk about their super secret missions if they know somebody is listening in, well. It hadn’t been long before they had come up with the shorthand.

Usually, Emmie did not really care much when her dad invoked a 007. It didn’t happen that often, and if it did, she would just go to her room or go outside until her dad or Poppins called her back in.

Right now, she was crouched behind a bookshelf, a couple of feet away from where her dad, Cassandra and Uncle Jake were talking. She barely felt the books that were digging into her back, or the way her knees protested to being down on the unforgiving floorboards as she closed her eyes and strained her ears to catch everything the grownups said.

‘It’s not like I don’t _want_ her to stay, Cass. I mean, you gotta realize that, right? I don’t _want_ to send her back, but you gotta believe me. It’s for the best.’

Her dad was getting defensive now, which Emmie wasn’t sure was a good thing. On one hand, it might mean that he knew he was already losing. On the other hand, it might only make him more obstinate, and every chance Uncle Jake and Cassandra might have had of winning him over, might fly right out the window.

‘Right, for the best.’ That was Uncle Jake. ‘You wanna tell me why you think so?’

Emmie didn’t really want to hear this part. Partly because she already knew, but mostly because hearing her dad explain exactly why she couldn’t stay, hurt even more than she had thought it would. Her eyes started to sting and her lungs started to burn with the effort to keep her breathing down as she listened to her dad telling about the dangers in the Library, the school she had to go back to, something about near death experiences that didn’t equal conflict resolution, whatever that meant but which seemed to be aimed at Uncle Jake, specifically, for some reason, and the fact that the three of them were Librarians, which was apparently not the best job for people who wanted to raise a kid together.

That last part especially felt like a giant claw wrapped itself around Emmie’s chest and squeezed it tight. She didn’t even hear Cassandra’s response, which sounded a lot colder and a lot more vicious than Emmie was used to. She didn’t hear it, because she was too busy gripping at one of the bookshelves and holding tight, focusing on the bite of iron in her hand as she felt anger and grief and fear rise up inside of her in a hot and dark red ball.

She had always assumed her dad would take her to the Library _someday._ That she would only have to stay with Poppins for a couple of years, maybe until she had finished primary school, but then her dad would come and he would take her to the Library and she would stay there, with her dad. Forever.

Apparently she had been wrong. Apparently her dad had never meant her to come to the Library in the first place.

The thought hurt so bad and was so all-consuming that it took Emmie a while to notice that the conversation in the reading nook had stopped completely. Trembling on all fours, she inched forward until she could risk a glance around the corner of the bookshelf.

Her dad was sitting on the couch, hunched forward and with his face buried in his hands. Cassandra was sitting next to him, one hand on her dad’s shoulders. She was saying something, but it was said so softly that Emmie did not catch it. She looked sad, and as her dad reached out blindly to grab her other hand, she looked like she was about to start crying. Meanwhile, Uncle Jake was sitting on Cassandra’s other side, looking around her at her dad and shaking his head.

‘Jones,’ he said softly. Her dad looked up and now Emmie could see the tears slowly trailing down his face. She was too focused on that to hear what Uncle Jake said next, but she did see Cassandra give a firm nod in agreement.

Emmie’s dad went very, very still for a moment. There was still doubt on his face, and for one brief moment Emmie felt a last stab of panic, but as Cassandra pulled him closer, Uncle Jake got up and moved to sit on her dad’s other side, wrapping one large arm around his shoulders. Sandwiched between Cassandra and Uncle Jake like this, her dad made on last weak attempt to say something before Uncle Jake growled something in his ear and Emmie’s dad deflated.

As did Emmie.

Emmie’s dad swallowed hard and looked at Uncle Jake. Then at Cassandra. Then back at Uncle Jake.

As did Emmie.

Cassandra and Uncle Jake nodded. Emmie’s dad deflated even further.

As did Emmie.

\---

In the reading nook, things were not going well for Ezekiel Jones. At first, he had thought he would only have to deal with Cassandra, which would have been hard enough in itself, but as they had come closer he had seen that Jake was already there,  pacing up and down the tiny room with a dark look on his face that made Ezekiel _very_ uneasy.

It had only gone downhill from there. And right now, Ezekiel was aware his voice was cracking as he explained to Jake and Cassandra why Kiwi couldn’t stay, but he forced the words out nevertheless. He had to, he had to make them understand because if they didn’t, they would keep trying to change his mind and worse, they would succeed.

The fact that he secretly, desperately _wanted_ them to succeed did not make him feel better in the least as he finally said: ‘Guys, we’re Librarians. It’s not exactly a regular, nine to five job and there’s a _reason_ we never even discussed having kids together. I mean, we gotta save the world every other day, we don’t exactly have time to pick her up from soccer practice or bake cookies for the PTA meetings. Or _go_ to PTA meetings. Or help with her homework or, or take her to the zoo or to the movies or, or…’

He stopped, because Jake was looking absolutely thunderous and Cassandra’s expression was colder than he had ever seen. ‘What?’

‘You’re right,’ Cassandra said, voice tinkling with ice crystals. ‘You’re absolutely right. It’s impossible to be a Librarian and have a kid. _If you try to do it alone.’_

The words hit Ezekiel like a slap in the face, and stung just as bad. For one brief moment they knocked the wind right out of him and he sat breathless, staring open-mouthed at Cassandra, who was still fixing him with an arctic stare, before he managed a ‘ _what?’._

‘What Cassie means,’ Jake growled, ‘is that you’re an idiot. Because you keep cracking jokes about me stealin’ your kid, but it didn’t occur to you that we might wanna help you? That we might wanna raise her together with you, because if she’s yours, then that means she’s gonna be ours as well?’

No. That had not occurred to Ezekiel. But it did now, and it did so with all the subtle force of a freight train. His breath stopped and hot tears started to burn; he quickly tried to wipe them away but to no avail, so instead he covered his face with his hands because looking at nothing was better than looking anywhere else right now.

A warm pressure to his side told him that Cassandra had shifted closer. Ezekiel had to fight the urge to lean into her, sag into her warmth and comfort as she put a hand on his shoulder and said softly: ‘You do realize that’s why we were so angry with you, right? Because you keep trying to carry everything on your own, while we all agreed that whatever happens, we were gonna face it together?’

She didn’t sound angry anymore. The ice in her voice had melted away and made place for a deep sadness that burned even worse than the frost had done.

‘Jones,’ Jake said as Ezekiel blindly flailed for Cassandra’s other hand because if he didn’t get _some_ sort of contact _right_ now he would disintegrate, ‘Jones, let me tell you something. You said that because you almost died, that don’t mean that everything is okay between us. And you’re not wrong about that. But. If you think I’m gonna stand by and let you tear your kid _and yourself_ apart like this, then you and I are gonna have a far bigger problem than you keepin’ her a secret all this time.’

It was a small miracle Ezekiel didn’t break all of Cassandra’s fingers as he stared at Jake for a long moment. Jake stared back, blue eyes hard and next to him, Cassandra nodded, her chin set and eyes as blue and hard as Jake’s.

Nothing happened. And after nothing had stopped happening, Ezekiel blinked and realized he was wrapped up in four strong arms, with Cassandra on one side and Jake on the other, both holding him as tight as they had done when he had woken up from his Echidna-induced coma.

‘Guys,’ he mumbled, unable to finish vocalizing whatever thought would present itself. ‘Guys, I…’

He didn’t get any further. Cassandra squeezed a warning, but it was Jake who delivered the final blow, by pulling Ezekiel impossibly closer before growling into his ear: ‘ _She. Stays.’_

With that, Ezekiel knew he had lost. And sitting slumped between Jake and Cassandra, now unable to stop himself from shaking or to stop the tears from spilling, almost cracking under the weight of relief and the realization that he had, indeed, been a massive, _massive_ idiot, Ezekiel couldn’t help but think that being defeated had never tasted sweeter.

\---

Emmie wasn’t entirely sure what just happened. She wasn’t even sure what was happening right now, because she had crawled back behind the bookshelf where she sat still, knees drawn up to her chest and shaking from head to toe while wave after wave of hope and fear and doubt washed over her.

Because even if it looked like Uncle Jake and Cassandra had won. Even if it looked like Emmie would get to stay in the Library. That thought was way too big and hoping it was true was way too scary to allow it in all at once.

Suddenly, the Library gloom got even darker. Emmie looked up to see her dad standing over her, his face still shining with wetness but a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘Hey Kiwi.’

His voice sounded weird and raspy, but Emmie didn’t care. She was too busy processing the fact that her dad kneeled down in front of her, his smile momentarily disappearing and making place for a frown. Or rather, a bad attempt at a frown. ‘You wanna tell me what happened to the code 007?’

He wasn’t angry. Emmie could always tell when people were angry with her, and right now, her dad was very much not. So she didn’t bother arguing, or explaining herself, or saying sorry; instead she shook her head before she moved forward, right into her dad’s arms. He caught her, wrapping her up close against him so her face got mushed into his shirt, her arms coming around her dad’s back to _hold on._

‘I’m not going back,’ she muttered quietly around a mouthful of cotton. She wasn’t even sure her dad heard her, but from the way his breath hitched into her hair, and from the way he suddenly held her so tight that she could barely breathe, it seemed like he did. ‘No,’ he muttered back, and now it was Emmie’s turn to start clinging even tighter. ‘No, you’re not.’

He drew back a little and looked at Emmie. He was smiling now, a full bright smile despite a couple of stray tears that were trailing their way down his cheeks. Emmie didn’t realize the same thing was happening to her, not until one of her dad’s hands came up to gently wipe a thumb against her eyelids. ‘You’re not going back,’ he repeated softly. ‘Because if you did, apparently those two over there would get you back in here sooner than you could say ‘kidnapping’. So.’

He stood up, taking Emmie with him. ‘Come on,’ he said, reaching out to take her hand.

\---

This time, Kiwi went a lot more willingly as Ezekiel took her out of the bookshelves and led her towards the reading nook where Jake and Cassandra were waiting. Or rather, where Jake was in the process of kissing Cassandra’s cheek and muttering something in her ear, something that made her curl one hand into his hair and pull him in for a soft and gentle kiss.

‘We did,’ she muttered when they broke apart, right before Ezekiel cleared his throat. ‘Guys, gross. There’s kids here.’

Jake and Cassandra looked up, an identical smile spreading across their faces as they saw Kiwi. ‘Hey kid,’ Jake said, before looking at Ezekiel with a knowing grin. ‘No eavesdropping, huh?’

Ezekiel shrugged. ‘Yeah well. You try and get her to listen to you all the time, we’ll see what happens.’ He let go of Kiwi’s shoulder for a moment, making a ‘move over’ gesture. ‘Come on. Make some room.’

 Jake and Cassandra split up obediently, leaving just enough of a gap for Kiwi to wriggle herself on to the couch between them, after a nudge from Ezekiel. Ezekiel didn’t miss the expression on Jake’s face as he looked down at the mass of brown curls, or the soft smile Cassandra gave him before she tucked a flyaway curl behind Kiwi’s ear and leaving her hand to rest on a scrawny shoulder. ‘Hey Emmie.’

‘Hey,’ Kiwi whispered back, leaning into the small touch and looking up at Cassandra in a way that twisted something gloriously painful inside Ezekiel’s gut.

Since the couch was too small for Ezekiel to join them without people getting uncomfortably squished together, he chose to sit down on his haunches facing Kiwi instead. She looked small, and a little unsure, surrounded by three grownups, but then Jake dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder and bent down to rumble, with a sidelong glance at Ezekiel: ‘hey Junior, are you sure you wanna stay with this one? ‘Cause I gotta be honest with ya, he might look mighty fine now, but wait ‘til you see him before he’s had his mornin’ tea. He’s a _mess.’_

Kiwi giggled. Ezekiel shook his head, throwing the cowboy a mock glare while also taking note of the way Jake suddenly sounded like Southern Comfort personified, the way he only did when he was inches away from an emotional meltdown.

‘That’s nothing,’ he told Kiwi. ‘’Cause if you really wanna stay, then I got to warn you as well. ‘Cause _Uncle Jake_ here talks in his sleep, in _Latin,_ and yeah, he can make pancakes but he has no clue how to make cereal. Or tea.’

Kiwi giggled again, although she did frown a little at the information about the tea. Not giving Jake time to get properly offended, Ezekiel turned to look at Cassandra and continued: ‘and as for Cass, you know, she looks adorable. But she takes _ages_ in the bathroom every morning and she’s a complete neat freak. So good luck finding your stuff back, because it won’t be where you last left it.’

Cassandra frowned, already opening her mouth to argue, but Ezekiel cut her off. ‘Cass, I know. We just gotta clean up after ourselves, you told us. But that’s the point.’ He looked back at Kiwi. ‘Because Uncle Jake is right. I’m a mess. I leave dirty mugs on the counter, I don’t take out the trash until the smell gets so bad that it almost kills me and I don’t think I ever touched a vacuum cleaner before I started living with these two. So.’

Jake’s eyebrows had almost disappeared into his hair, but Cassandra was looking at Ezekiel with a smile that told him she had guessed what he was doing. Ezekiel smiled back, gently brushing the back of her hand with his own before he reached out to put his hand on Kiwi’s knee. She was looking very serious now, sensing the momentousness of the occasion.

‘So,’ Ezekiel said, ‘Emmie. Are you sure you want to stay with us? With all three of us? Because it won’t be pancakes every day, and unicorns and magic and rainbows. We won’t all get along all the time. Jake and Cassandra and I will argue, and fight, and shout at each other. We will be as annoying and stupid and dumb as all your friends’ parents, but even worse, because there will be three of us.’

Jake nodded, finally having figured out Ezekiel’s point as well. ‘We’ll _all_ be on your case,’ he added, smiling down at Ezekiel. ‘ _All the time.’_

Kiwi nodded. ‘I know,’ she said, voice small. ‘I know… I know things won’t be happy all the time.’

‘Good,’ Ezekiel said softly, giving her knee an encouraging squeeze. ‘And you still wanna stay?’

Kiwi nodded again and made a noise that sounded like ‘yes.’

‘Good,’ Ezekiel repeated, taking a deep breath and firmly shoving down the urge to wrap her up tight in his arms again. ‘Okay. Just hang on, we’re almost done.’

He shifted a little, drawing back to face Jake and Cassandra. ‘Because the same goes for you. Because this one, she looks tiny and harmless. But she’s responsible for one dead bunny rabbit, a whole lot of broken glasses and coffee mugs and she has a habit of running off without letting anyone know where she’s going. Which is not ideal in a place that has a Back Door.’

Jake hummed in amusement, and Cassandra made a face _._ Kiwi’s hand was now covering Ezekiel’s own, holding on so tight that it hurt.

‘And you still want her to stay?’ Ezekiel asked.

There was a long moment of silence, in which it seemed like the entire Library held its breath. Then Cassandra cleared her throat and placed her hand on top of Kiwi’s. ‘Yeah,’ she said, voice hoarse. ‘I do.’

A rough, calloused hand closed over two slender ones and one tanned one. ‘She’s not going anywhere,’ Jake said in a voice like ground up gravel.

Ezekiel breathed out. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then… yeah. Okay.’

Kiwi made another noise, one that sounded suspiciously like a sob before she sagged forward, all the built up tension leaving her at once. Ezekiel reached out to catch her, pulling her as close as possible without doing any physical damage. With his nose buried in Kiwi’s curls, one of his hands cradling the back of her head so she could bury her face into his shoulder, he felt the last of his own tension evaporate as well, leaving them both boneless and a little breathless, wrapped up in each other on the Library floor.

There was a shifting sound and Ezekiel looked up from where he was mouthing kisses to Kiwi’s temple, to see Cassandra wiping her eyes and Jake looking at her with eyes that were shining wet as well. Wordlessly, he reached out with one hand to tug at Cassandra’s until she slid off the couch. She was followed suit by Jake, the both of them wrapping one arm around Kiwi and one arm around Ezekiel so that Kiwi almost disappeared into the tangle of limbs surrounding her. Silence descended again, but this silence was punctuated with tender words, soft gestures and even softer kisses in all directions.

Ezekiel didn’t know how long they stayed like this. He wasn’t even sure how his face had ended up in the crook of Jake’s neck, or how Kiwi had ended up spread across his and Cassandra’s lap, or how Cassandra had somehow managed to wrap her tiny frame completely around both Kiwi and Jake, but at last he looked up. Took in the sight of his kid, surrounded by warmth and love and comfort. Swallowed heavily and, sagging back against Jake and closing his eyes against the stubbled kiss that was planted into his hair, said: ‘So, who’s gonna tell Baird?’


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, in Jenkins lab...

‘And now I suppose it’s your turn.’

After he had made sure Ezekiel had in fact left the immediate area and he, nor anybody else, would come back in for the foreseeable future, Jenkins finally returned to his workbench to pick up the mixture of water, belladonna berries and blessed thistle extract. He gave it one last vigorous stir, almost sloshing it out of the bowl, before he set it down again. Taking a deep breath, he then dipped the sandalwood brush into the mixture, let it soak for a moment and took it out to drag it over the mirror in a large, downward stroke. He did this once, twice, three times, until he had covered the entire mirror. Large droplets of water and small, dark bits of berry pulp slowly slid down across the glass as Jenkins took a step back, muttering the evocation under his breath. _Veni ad meum. Ostende mihi. Dice mihi, et non noce mihi._

He repeated this two times as well. It wasn’t necessary, per se, but somehow, things always seemed to work better in threes when dealing with her.

The mirror stood on the workbench, showing nothing but Jenkins’ own reflection as he waited patiently. She would come. Even if he had botched the ritual somehow (he knew he hadn’t), she would still feel the pull and Jenkins knew she would not be able to resist it.

He was right. After a couple of silent seconds had ticked by, the mirror started to cloud over. Ever so slightly at first, pale pink, blue and silver swirls of fog that barely obscured the reflection of the room. Then the fog grew deeper, the colors darkening to dark indigo, deep, angry red and a grey that was almost black, so that the mirror took the shade of night and fire and blood. The room grew darker as well, darker and colder as tendrils of smoke drifted out of the mirror and down towards the floor.

Jenkins rolled his eyes.

And then, in a flash, the fog was gone. Instead, the mirror now showed a room. It was an elegant room with tall windows through which sunlight was streaming in. It was a little bare, but what furniture there was, seemed well made and tailored to a specific taste. For instance, the writing desk and the accompanying chair in the corner were both so finely made and exquisitely decorated, that you would almost forget it was solid oak, heavy and practically indestructible despite the pretty exterior. There was a silver statuette of a raven perched on top of the desk.

‘Colored smoke, really?’ Jenkins said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I thought we had gotten past the dramatics by now.’

‘Hello, Galeas,’ said a disembodied voice from somewhere inside the mirror.

Jenkins rolled his eyes. ‘And there’s no need for that, either. Show yourself, please. You know I hate talking to empty air.’

There was the sound of an irritated huff before the image in the mirror started to crystallize, first only into the outline and then into the full shape of a woman. She had changed her hair from the last time he’d seen her, Jenkins noted: instead of a short, red bob, it was now a thick braid that hung over her shoulder down to her waist, the deep black color glowing almost blue in the sunlight. Her eyes had changed as well. They were no longer brown, but a light green flecked with gold, the contrast with the dark hair giving her an almost ethereal look.

‘Is this better?’ she asked, giving him a smile that was about as genuine as a leopard asking a gazelle to play hide and seek.

That smile had been the only thing she could not change about herself, had never been able to change about herself, no matter how many forms she had gone through over the ages. Jenkins had known that smile for almost as long as he had lived and he had always been able to pick it out of any crowd. He knew she _hated_ that, which definitely did _not_ give him a warm and fuzzy feeling whenever he thought about it.

‘Marginally,’ Jenkins replied. ‘Hello, Morgan.’

‘I notice you are not in mourning for your young Librarian.’

‘No, I am not. Despite your best efforts, Mr. Jones is still with us.’

‘The gods help you all.’

Now it was Jenkins’ turn to flash a smile. ‘Indeed.’

Morgan glared. ‘What happened?’

Instead of replying immediately, Jenkins first dragged the chair he had used to stop Ezekiel from falling down towards him. He sat down, leaning forward a little while resting his chin on his hands and looking at Morgan with badly disguised glee. ‘What happened was that your, frankly, ham-fisted attempt to pit the parent of one child against the other, backfired. Rather spectacularly, I might add. And you should consider yourself lucky it did.’

Morgan’s eyes narrowed further. ‘Tell me why, Galeas.’

‘Because,’ Jenkins said calmly, ‘if you _had_ succeeded, if the boy had not been so extraordinarily lucky or if your plan had been just a little better thought out, there would have been no force on this green earth that would stop me, or Jacob Stone, or Cassandra Cillian, or Colonel Baird, from coming after you and destroying you.’ He huffed. ‘Honestly, Morgan. You sent a magical creature after someone who you _know_ cannot be harmed by magic? I expected more of you.’

If looks could kill, Jenkins would have been a bubbling puddle on the floor. He stared back, unperturbed as Morgan let his words sink in. ‘ _You_ would come after me?’ she asked, after a long silence that was so charged, you could have used it to power a small town. ‘You, Galeas?’

She laughed, a tinkling sound that still raked its nails down Jenkins’ spine. ‘Oh, I would almost try something again, just to get you out of your hidey-hole. It would just be like old times!’

‘No, it would not,’ Jenkins said. ‘In the old times, I used to far more lenient with you.’

‘You sold me out as a witch to the French in 1428!’

‘You mean when you convinced a peasant girl that God was telling her to lead the French into battle? A _fourteen year old_ peasant girl?’

Morgan’s laugh tinkled through the room again. ‘Oh, right. I almost forgot about that part.’

Jenkins didn’t laugh. ‘I didn’t.’

‘No, I bet you didn’t,’ Morgan said with an amused quirk of her lips. ‘Poor Galeas. You tried so hard and yet you never succeeded. And still you are telling me that you will defend this boy? Against _me_? Have you learnt _nothing_ in all these years?’

‘I have,’ Jenkins said. ‘I’ve learnt that Colonel Baird can land a mean punch to the face.’

Morgan wrinkled her nose. ‘That’s true. Unfortunate, but true.’

‘And I’ve learnt that Cassandra Cillian might look adorably innocent, but she has a ruthless streak and a rather worrying affinity with magic,’ Jenkins continued. ‘Much like yourself, I might add. And lastly, I have learnt that Jacob Stone is fully capable of tackling ancient immortal snake creatures to the ground and subduing them. So count yourself lucky, because if your plan had worked, they would not even have needed my help to take you down. They are very… _protective_ of each other, I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.’

‘I did. Three little Librarians, sitting in a tree.’

Jenkins did not favor that with a reply. Instead he said: ‘So you do see that it would be in your own best interest to cease your fascination with Ezekiel Jones, and direct your attention elsewhere. Towards acquiring some mithridate of your own, perhaps.’

Morgan tapped her chin. ‘Hmm. I have to say, he _is_ awfully fascinating, Galeas. I don’t suppose you know why…?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Jenkins said. Then the second part of what he had said registered and Morgan’s eyes narrowed again. ‘Why would I need mithridate, exactly?’

‘Because,’ Jenkins said, a beatific smile shining on his face, ‘I might have had a brief but very interesting conversation with the poor creature you sent here to do your dirty work. She was not very impressed when I told her how you used the murder of her child to get her to attack an innocent man. She… well, she might be on her way right now to talk to you about that.’

If he hadn’t known Morgan as well as he did, he would have missed it. The minute glimmer of fear that flitted over her face before a smirk took over. ‘She won’t find me,’ Morgan said, with all the assurance of someone who is mostly trying to assure themselves. ‘I’m not on your plane of existence, Galeas. As long as I’m here, she cannot get to me.’

‘True,’ Jenkins conceded. ‘But you see, that’s the beauty of it: either you stay where you are, out of everybody’s business, or the moment you arrive on this plane to conduct some nefarious scheme, you find yourself facing one _very_ angry serpent.’ His smile grew wider and acquired an evil edge now. ‘Did you know she’s immortal as well? What am I saying, of course you do. So, you can’t kill her and she can’t kill you, which is a bit of a pity, but on the upside: even if you’re immortal, Echidna venom is a _bitch._ ’

For one glorious moment, possibly for the first time in fifteen hundred years, Jenkins had the pleasure of seeing Morgan Le Fay speechless with shock and powerless rage. And he savored it for all it was worth, taking in the image of her slack face, the pale eyes bulging and the mouth hanging agape. Jenkins watched in delighted silence, immediately tucking the image neatly away into his mind, storing it away in the little trove of treasured memories that kept him warm at night.

Finally, Morgan seemed to gather herself again. Her mouth closed with a snap and her eyes started to glow dark with fury, one of her fists coming up in an apparent attempt to break free of the mirror and lash out at Jenkins. Whether she meant to do this physically or magically, Jenkins did not care, because Morgan might be fast, but he was faster. He jumped out of the chair and slammed the mirror face down on to the workbench. Glass splintered and wood creaked as it shook under his hands, thrashing against the workbench while Jenkins struggled to keep it lying flat. ‘Exite, exite, _exite!_ Iubeo te, _exite!’_

The mirror gave one last furious shudder before it became quiet again. Dust and silence settled into the room. Jenkins held on to the mirror for another minute, just to be sure, before he let go, carefully and ready to tackle it again if necessary.

Another minute passed. The mirror didn’t move. Jenkins took a step back, and another, sagging down into the chair before he let out the breath he had been holding. ‘Well,’ he muttered to nobody in particular. ‘I think that went rather well.’

\---

As was so often the case, Jenkins found that Eve Baird vehemently disagreed with his point of view. She sat at her desk, eyes closed and pinching the bridge of her nose while Jenkins stood, watched, and tried not to shuffle his feet like a schoolboy in front of the head master.

At long last, Eve opened her eyes again to fix Jenkins with a dark blue stare. ‘You want to run that by me again? Because I could swear you just told me that _Morgan Le Fay_ was after Ezekiel and it might just be me, but that does not sound like ‘the case is solved’ to me.’

‘But it is,’ Jenkins insisted. ‘At least, for now it is. She will not attempt anything until she has dealt with Echidna and I do not need to tell you how much I am looking forward to _that_ confrontation.’

Eve muttered something uncharitable under her breath before she shook her head. ‘And when she’s done that? Echidna can’t kill her and house arrest won’t hold her forever. She’ll be back again, and she’s almost gotten to us twice now. Who says she won’t be lucky the third time around?’

‘Colonel Baird,’ Jenkins said in what he hoped was a soothing manner. ‘Eve. Morgan is nothing if not prudent. She has not _almost gotten_ you twice, she has _underestimated_ you twice. And I have already dissuaded her, in no uncertain terms, from taking up a third attempt.’

Eve glared. ‘Did you now.’

‘I did.’ Jenkins did not explain further, leaving it to Eve to fill in the blanks as she saw fit. There was no need to get too specific.

‘If, _if_ she wants to try anything new,’ he said, ‘it won’t be for a long time. You can be sure of that, Colonel.’

‘Time is good,’ Eve said after a short pause. ‘We can use that. Find out why the hell Jones is apparently immune to magic, for instance.’

‘For instance,’ Jenkins agreed, turning back to his desk and ignoring the invisible question mark that was dangling after that statement. ‘But I suggest we take that up tomorrow. Nessie Jr. should have been fed an hour ago and I had been planning to scrub out the dragon pens, but that might have to wait another day because…’ he rummaged under his desk, through a number of drawers, through the papers on his desk before he looked at Eve again. She looked amused, for some reason, although there were still remnants of a worried frown visible on her brow. ‘Have you seen my To Do list?’

‘I have, actually,’ Eve said, smiling now. ‘I believe Jones Junior has it. She’s been busy, while you were away.’

She got up and made her way over to Jenkins’ desk, blue eyes now twinkling as she saw the confusion there. ‘Nessie Jr. has been fed and this time, she remembered to put on oilskins so you won’t have to play drycleaner again. Peggy and Suzie are gleaming like never before and so is the dragon pen.’

Jenkins hummed. ‘Right. If that is the case, then I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Colonel, but I do not think it would be wise to send the child back to London. Whatever her father’s plans might be.’

‘I don’t think you have to worry about that,’ Eve said, her smile only growing wider. ‘Because about an hour ago, I saw Jones head into the Library, followed by a _very_ determined looking Cassandra. Stone and Junior are in there somewhere as well, and none of them have not come out yet. So either they’ve finally murdered each other, or…’

‘…or things are drawing to a happy conclusion for all,’ Jenkins finished, returning Eve’s smile. ‘Thank God.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exite: Leave, get out, go away.  
> Iubeo te: I order you
> 
> Also, we're nearing the end! Just two more wrap up chapters and an epilogue to go, and then I can finally get back to my normal life again (if such a thing exists, I'm not sure). Thank you all for your support, comments, kudos and for sticking with me so far!


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Domesticness and fluff all around. Also, Poppins gets a proper send off, because you have to take care of your hitmen-cum-nannies even when they've only been in the story for a couple of sentences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, guys, you can blame Budapest. Which is a gorgeous city, but the fact that it's so gorgeous means I spent all of last week sightseeing and not writing, so boo. But now I'm back in my own boring hometown, so yay! Have fun with this one!

The next morning, Ezekiel woke up slowly and more comfortable than he had been in days. In fact, he was so comfortable that he didn’t even bother waking up completely. He just lay there, eyes closed, one warm presence plastered against his back and his face mushed into more solid warmth, as he breathed in and out, gently floating in that happy place between sleeping and waking for as long as he could.

Something was niggling at the back of his brain, something new and important, but whatever it was, it could probably wait until he was a bit more conscious. Because right now, a heavy arm was tightening around his waist and pulling him closer while on his other side, someone shifted and curled themselves into his chest. With a nose full of the scent of sleepy vanilla and a heart full of something else entirely, Ezekiel drifted back into darkness.

Until there was a sound from the living room. It was a very distinctive sound, and Ezekiel wished he didn’t know it as well as he did. It was a muted crash, followed by a clatter and after that, the deep silence of someone desperately refraining from making any more noise while also straining to hear if anyone else had heard. It took Ezekiel a while to remember why this noise, which he associated only with his London apartment, suddenly presented itself here. When it finally came back to him, he buried his face into the pillow with a muted groan.

‘What the hell was that?’ came Jake’s sleepy growl from behind Ezekiel’s back.

‘That,’ Ezekiel managed as Cassandra moved to sit up, ‘was Kiwi crashing into the coffee table and making everything on it fall over. Welcome to your new life, guys.’

\---

Thankfully, the damage to both the coffee table and Kiwi was minimal. So after they had cleared up the remains of Jake’s favorite coffee mug (after Cassandra had chided Jake for leaving it out in the first place and after Kiwi had promised Jake to buy him a new one, as soon as the allowance negotiations were finished), it was time to get some breakfast.

‘Uncle Jake?’ Kiwi started pleading as they made their way to the kitchen.

Jake didn’t even need to hear the rest. He just started digging through the cupboards without even glancing back at Kiwi. ‘Yeah, I get it. One plate of pancakes, extra syrup, hold the butter, coming up.’

Ezekiel watched it happen from the doorway, leaning against the wall and shaking his head. ‘Pathetic, mate.’

Now Jake did look back, grinning and holding up a frying pan in one hand and a carton of eggs in the other. ‘Hey, don’t give me that. First day of a new life, deserves a special breakfast don’t you think?’

Ezekiel gave this a moment’s contemplation. ‘Do we have any bacon left?’

Soon, the kitchen filled up with the smell of pancakes, fried bacon and coffee. Kiwi set the table, supervised by Cassandra, while Ezekiel helped Jake make sure his bacon was done nice and crispy. After Jake had whacked his fingers with the spatula for the second time, however, Ezekiel retreated to the table as well, pouting and muttering about bloody cowboys who had no respect for delicate hands worthy of a neurosurgeon.

Ten minutes later, the pancakes were done and they settled down to eat. And to discuss some important matters, because a new life for Kiwi was all well and good, but it also meant that a lot of arrangements would have to be made. Starting with the issue Ezekiel had identified the moment they got home the night before.

\---

The moment the newly minted family of four walked through the door, Ezekiel took one look around Jake’s apartment. And froze, one hand still on Kiwi’s shoulder as both Jake and Cassandra bumped into him from behind. ‘Guys, there’s a problem.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Cassandra asked, making her way around Ezekiel so she could see into the apartment. She looked around with a frown, not seeing anything amiss.

Ezekiel turned around, looking at Jake and biting his lip to hide his grin. ‘You’ve only got one bedroom, mate.’

Jake glowered for a second before his face softened. ‘I’ve got a study I can clear out.’

\---

 At first, Kiwi protested. Because Uncle Jake’s couch was very comfortable and she didn’t need a bed and anyway, where was all Uncle Jake’s stuff going to go if they had to move it out of the study?

‘I’ll find a place for it,’ Jake reassured her through a mouthful of bacon and maple syrup. ‘To be honest, I never really use it anyway. Library’s got more resources than I could ever cram into one room myself, so clearing it out might not be a bad idea. And of course,’ he continued, swallowing hugely and grinning at Ezekiel, ‘there’s a nice big apartment in London going to stand empty very soon, so I guess I can always move some stuff over there if need be.’

‘Sure,’ Ezekiel said with a shrug. ‘That’s fair. But I might have some plans for that place as well, so don’t go cramming it too full, OK? No book stacks from floor to ceiling.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Jake said. Kiwi looked at Ezekiel. ‘What are you going to do with the house? Are you going to sell it?’

‘I thought about it,’ Ezekiel replied, ‘but that wouldn’t really be fair on Poppins, do you think? Leaving him homeless all of a sudden.’

Kiwi bit her lip and poked at her pancakes with her fork, obviously not having thought about how Poppins fit into all of this.

‘Then what are you going to do?’ Cassandra asked. She had earlier won Kiwi over in the New Bedroom Case by promising her that the two of them could decorate it together. Since Kiwi had taken a shine to Cassandra’s colorful taste (and especially the polkadotted XXL mugs, one of which was now standing next to Kiwi’s plate, filled with OJ), this suggestion had caused some reconsideration for the first time since Kiwi had claimed that ‘everybody sleeps in a bed all the time, sleeping on the couch is _cool.’_

‘Like I said, I might have some plans,’ Ezekiel repeated, slicing off another piece of his pancake stack. ‘But I’ll have to discuss it with Poppins first. I don’t think he’ll object, though.’

And that was the last they said about that. So after a brief moment in which they all helped themselves to another plate of pancakes, they moved on to the next important issue on the list: education.

‘Do I have to?’

‘Do you have to go to school? Yes, you do.’

‘But... you work in the _Library_.’

‘That’s true. And I’m not saying homeschooling...’

‘Library schooling.’

‘...thanks Cass. I’m not saying that  _that_  is not on the table, but we gotta think carefully about this. And I gotta at least let Head Mistress Susan and the other teachers know you’re not coming back.’

Kiwi looked dejectedly at the maple syrupy mess on her plate. ‘Okay.’

‘Hey,’ Ezekiel said, nudging her arm. ‘If you wanna come with me to stay in London for a few days, to say goodbye to people, that’s okay. We can do that. Just because you’re gonna live here now, doesn’t mean you have to up and leave everything behind like that.’

Kiwi hesitated for a moment, and nodded. ‘Yeah, I... I think I’d like that.’

Cassandra nodded as well. ‘Might be a good idea,’ she said. ‘Gives us time to get everything ready over here, because I am  _not_  looking forward to hearing you and Jake trying to build an IKEA bed together.’

Ezekiel shuddered and Jake groaned. ‘Yeah, good call.’

Before they could get into more detail, however, three phones started to buzz. Cassandra was the first to grab hers and read the message, making a face as she did. ‘Guys, we better continue this later. Baird needs us in Madrid ASAP.’

Jake had already started clearing the table, going from domestic to Librarian on Duty in a matter of seconds. ‘Jones, you stay here. You deserve some time off with the kid, get her settled and everything.’

Ezekiel shook his head. ‘Thanks cowboy, but how exactly are you guys planning to get into... wow, the Prado, really? ...after hours without me? I’m coming with you, Kiwi can stay with Jenkins. Or Cal, or Nessie. Or whatever creature wants to babysit her, it’s all fine with me.’

‘This kid’s gonna have the weirdest life,’ was Jake’s only exasperated comment as he slammed the dishwasher shut with a crash.

‘Yeah,’ Cassandra said with a grin, grabbing her purse and heading towards the door, ‘but then again, she’s one of us now.’

\---

The case in Madrid meant that further arrangements had to be postponed for a while. But after they had cleared away the magical trap a duende had created, a trap that made everybody looking at Pieter Paul Rubensz.’ _The Three Graces_ take their clothes off, grab the two people nearest to them and start dancing until they dropped, Ezekiel managed to successfully wiggle a day off for all three of them out of Eve Baird. Which meant that the next day, Jake poured Ezekiel, Cassandra and Kiwi into his pickup truck and drove them all to the big blue and yellow box just outside of Portland.

There, they soon found out that IKEA is not only heaven for kids, it’s _especially_ heaven for kids who actually get to choose the things they are going to buy. As soon as they made their way inside, Kiwi started flitting from one showroom interior to the other, pointing excitedly at lamps, bookshelves, chairs, rugs, pillows, desks, and most of all, bunkbeds and claiming that she wanted _this one no wait this one’s cool or maybe this one look at that that lamp looks like a robot can I have that please._ Jake and Cassandra followed at a slightly more sedate pace, with Jake reminding Kiwi every so often about the list of items they had made together and which they were going to _stick to I don’t care how cool that lamp looks you’ve already got a desk lamp and you don’t need two,_ while Cassandra winked at Kiwi behind Jake’s back and then proceeded to smuggle the robot desk lamp, three pillowcases and a 15 inch tall stuffed bunny rabbit into the cart. When Jake turned around, he was met with two angelically smiling faces and a cart that was a little fuller than the last time he had looked.

Graceful in defeat, as always, he merely gave Cassandra a stern look, which neither Cassandra, nor Kiwi, nor Jake himself bought for a second. Then he looked around and the stern look was replaced by a frown. ‘Hang on, where’s Jones?’

‘I don’t know,’ Cassandra said, turning around and scanning the crowd. ‘He was with us when we went through the kitchens.’

‘Then we must’ve lost him somewhere in one of the living rooms,’ Jake grumbled. ‘Great. You go get him, I’ll try and convince Junior over here that she doesn’t need a six foot tall mirror.’

Cassandra laughed. ‘Good luck with that,’ she said before she pressed a lightning quick kiss to Jake’s cheek and set off in search of Ezekiel.

She found him in the corner of a bare, industrially designed living room, well out of the way of any customers. He was sitting, hunched forward, on a dark grey couch that looked like it was made out of actual concrete. Ezekiel’s hands were clasped in front of his chin and mouth and he was staring at the floor, an expression on his face that made Cassandra pause for just the briefest moment before she made her way over towards him.

‘Hey,’ she said softly before sitting down. ‘You okay?’

Ezekiel looked up, landing back into this universe with an almost audible _thud._ ‘Hey. Uhm, yeah, I’m…’ He paused, blinking a couple of times before he flashed a brittle smile and waved his hand in the general direction of where Jake and Kiwi were. ‘Yeah. Uhm. This is happening.’

‘It is,’ Cassandra agreed. ‘And before you go off asking if I’m still okay with this, or if I’m still mad at you, I’m just going to remind you that we already talked about that. A _lot._ ’

‘I know,’ Ezekiel muttered. They had indeed had several lengthy conversations to clear the air of any resentment that might be left, including the one immediately after Kiwi had gone to sleep on Jake’s couch the first night. Apart from Jake, who, in his own words ‘was always a little pissed off at you anyway, you know that right,’ the three of them were okay. More than okay, in fact.

Which was why Cassandra wrapped her arms around Ezekiel and pulled him into a hug without another word, and which was why Ezekiel went willingly, holding Cassandra just as tight, closing his eyes as she reached up and stroked a hand through his hair.

‘This is happening,’ she said, pressing a kiss to the top of Ezekiel’s ear. A long moment passed before Ezekiel nodded, not saying anything. Instead, he drew back and looked at Cassandra with a smile that was a lot softer but held a lot more joy than one of his usual bright grins.

‘Thank you.’

It was said softly, a bit hoarsely, those two words crammed so full with gratitude and love that they almost burst with it. Before Cassandra could form a reply, or swallow the lump that was forming in her throat, Ezekiel reached out and cupped her head in one hand, his thumb stroking her temple as he drew her close and pressed a reverent kiss to her forehead.

‘Thank you.’

The next kiss was more playful, to the tip of Cassandra’s nose and now Ezekiel’s smile was growing into a grin.

‘Thank you.’

Finally, Ezekiel caught Cassandra’s mouth in a long, deep kiss, burying one hand into her hair and pulling her still impossibly closer. As she did with most things, Cassandra responded with great enthusiasm and for a long moment, the entire IKEA around them fell away until it was just the both of them, lost in each other on an ugly, uncomfortable couch.

That was to say, _almost_ the entire IKEA. Because just before they reached the moment where they had to come up for oxygen, there were running footsteps and:

_‘Ewwwwww!’_

Without actually moving back, Cassandra broke off the kiss and muttered, smiling against Ezekiel’s mouth: ‘If we ignore her, do you think she’ll go away?’

‘Not a chance,’ Ezekiel replied with a rueful grin before he looked up, still grinning, into Kiwi’s affronted face that was staring at them from across the tiny showroom. ‘Tough luck, Kiwi. Better get used to this.’

Kiwi shook her head with another empathic ‘ _ewww_ ’ _._ Thankfully, that was the moment Jake rounded the corner as well, took one look at the situation and grinned. ‘Tell you what, Junior, how about I start kissin’ your dad. Would that be better?’

‘ _No!’_

Ezekiel held out a hand. ‘Come here, cowboy.’

Cassandra obediently got up from the couch to make room for Jake. Soon, Ezekiel’s head was cradled in a large, calloused hand and a rough voice murmured about how it was never too early to embarrass your kid in public, right before soft lips met his in the gentlest of cowboy kisses, slow and soft and so tender it hurt. It didn’t take long before Ezekiel managed to tune out the soundtrack of Kiwi making violent throwing up noises in the background.

\---

After they had loaded a still gagging Kiwi into Jake’s truck, together with about two dozen very heavy cardboard packages and a load of smaller items none of them remembered putting in the cart, it was nearing the end of the afternoon. So before driving back home, Jake made a small detour and dropped Kiwi and Ezekiel off at the Annex, together with the suitcases they had prepared that morning.

Leaving Portland at 5pm meant they would arrive in London in the middle of the night, but after four years of negotiating time zones all over the globe, Ezekiel had decided this would be the best option. It would mean a short night for him, but he was used to that. And Kiwi could stay in bed for as long as she liked while Ezekiel made his way to the Rosalind Franklin Preparatory School, where he had to explain to Head Mistress Susan, a woman who always wore her jet black hair in a bun so tight that Ezekiel got a headache just from looking at it and who had a piercing grey stare that was more terrifying than any snake monster, why he was pulling his daughter out of school. This was not an immediate success.

‘Mr. Jones, I hope you understand that this is highly irregular. Deregistering your child is one thing, but it is the middle of the school year. Not to _mention_ the fact that she has been absent for more than a week without the proper authorization from or any kind of communication to the school board.’

‘I understand, Miss Susan. And I do apologize, but there was a… personal emergency. I’m afraid I cannot give you any more details than that.’

‘Hmm.’

However, after some more groveling, humming, shuffling of feet and sharp looks over the edge of Head Mistress Susan’s horn-rimmed glasses, Ezekiel managed to escape unscathed, with the promise that Kiwi could come by the following morning to get her stuff and to say goodbye to her classmates.

When he got back to the apartment, he found that Kiwi had woken up and was sitting at the breakfast table, deep in conversation with Poppins. Sandy curls and a large, bald head were bent together closely as Kiwi, from the looks of it, told Poppins all about what had happened with his ex-girlfriend.

‘… and she was really a snake, but not a whole snake, but like some sort of snake monster and Uncle Jake said she was immortal and that she couldn’t really be hurt, so what I did with the knife was actually okay. And then she almost killed dad, but he didn’t die but he was really hurt for a while and then Uncle Jake and Colonel Baird locked Andi in a cell but then she wouldn’t talk to them so then I tried talking to her because I already sort of knew her and I thought that she would sooner talk to someone she already knew, right? And then it turned out that…’

Ezekiel paused in the doorway, not knowing whether to laugh at the mix of horror and bafflement on Poppins’ face, or to shake his head in commiseration. Meanwhile, Kiwi had arrived at the part about Lamia, making her falter for a moment because she still didn’t know all the details about that part. Which, if Ezekiel had anything to say about it, would stay that way.

‘She was after me because she thought I killed her kid,’ he said, making both Kiwi and Poppins look up. ‘We managed to convince her otherwise.’

Poppins raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds like you had an interesting couple of days,’ he said. ‘Good to see you still in one piece, though.’

Ezekiel nodded, making his way over to the coffee machine. Short nights were fine, but caffeine never hurt. ‘That’s one way of saying it, yeah.’

In the silence, the coffee gurgled and spluttered into the pot. Only after it had finished, and after Ezekiel had poured himself a healthy mug full and taken his first sip, did Poppins say: ‘So, this is it, then? She’s finally gonna live with you?’

‘Yeah,’ Ezekiel said, putting down the mug and leaning back against the counter.

‘We’ll come visit,’ Kiwi said in a tiny voice as the silence dragged on. Poppins looked at her, his hardened features softening. ‘That’s okay, little one,’ he said softly. ‘I’d like that, but you don’t have to. Not if you’re gonna have a real family now.’

‘We will, though,’ Ezekiel said. ‘And you _are_ her real family, mate. Been there for her more often than I have.’

Poppins shrugged, taking a gulp of cold tea instead of replying.

‘That’s why I wanted to discuss something with you before we left,’ Ezekiel continued. ‘Kiwi, can you go upstairs for a moment? You can start packing your clothes and the stuff you want to take with you, because Poppins and I need to talk business.’

Kiwi nodded and went, for once without protest. Ezekiel had not told her about his plan, because he wasn’t even sure it was a good plan, or if Poppins wouldn’t laugh in his face and run off, never to be seen again, but it was worth a shot.

‘If you wanna talk business,’ Poppins said slowly once Kiwi had left the room, ‘I gotta warn you. I’m a little rusty. If you need me back in the game, I’m gonna need some time.’

Ezekiel drained the dregs of his coffee, made a face, and left the counter to sit down at the table, looking at Poppins and shaking his head. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

Poppins stared back.

‘What I meant was,’ Ezekiel said, ‘that you have kept her safe. And not only that, but you… you care for her like she’s your own, even if I never expected or asked that of you.’

The corner of Poppins’ mouth twitched. ‘Hard not to care for a scamp like that.’

Ezekiel smiled. ‘True. The thing is, she came out of the shittiest of situations. And you’ve made sure she ended up happy and healthy and… _her._ So, I wanted to thank you.’

‘It’s been my pleasure, Jones.’

‘I know. But still.’

‘But still.’

‘But still, I’m going to take her with me. And I know you’ve nagged at me a couple of times why I wouldn’t take her home with me already, that she should be with her dad and not with a nanny and that you just said she’s gonna have a _real family_ now, but I also know that this is gonna hurt you like a bitch.’

Poppins’ mouth twitched again. Downward, this time. ‘You’re not wrong about that.’

‘And since you’re _too rusty_ to get back into the game, I thought of something else you might be able to do. Not for me, for yourself. Although I will help you in any way I can.’

‘Tell me.’

The plan was simple. So simple that it took Ezekiel only a couple of sentences to explain it. When that was done, the silence that dragged on lasted far, far longer.

‘Run that by me again?’ Poppins asked after he had stared down Ezekiel for a short ice age, the expression on his face completely unreadable. ‘You want me…’

‘I want you,’ Ezekiel said, ‘to find a kid. Or find two kids, maybe even three. Hell, as long as you can fit them into the apartment without social services busting down the doors, you can take an entire daycare center for all I care. Take them in, care for them, keep ‘em safe. They’ll be yours, I won’t snatch them away. And if there’s any paperwork involved, any money or anything else you need, I’ll take care of it. It’s… it’s the least I could do.’

‘Right,’ Poppins said, still giving no indication whether he liked Ezekiel’s plan, or if he thought it completely fucking bonkers.

‘There’s a lot of kids like her out there, Byron,’ Ezekiel said softly. ‘And we can’t help them all. But we can help some of them.’

For the first time since Ezekiel had met him, Poppins actually looked at a loss for words. When he finally cleared his throat, lifted his cup of tea to his mouth only to find out that it was empty, put it down with force, cleared his throat again and said: ‘I’ll think about it,’ it sounded like it came from miles and miles away.

Suddenly, Ezekiel had a little more trust in his completely fucking bonkers plan.

\---

And so, that was that. Two days later, all goodbyes had been said, all the tears had been shed and all Kiwi’s stuff was piled up in front of her bedroom door, just waiting for Jenkins on the other end to set up the Back Door to the Annex. Say whatever you wanted about working for a magic Library, but it made international removals a whole lot easier.

‘Hey,’ Ezekiel said. He was standing in front of the pile of clothes and trinkets, looking to his side and holding out his hand. ‘You wanna see what Cassandra’s done with your room?’

A small hand slid into his and he squeezed it, holding on tight as Kiwi came to stand next to him, so close that he could feel her warmth through his shirt. ‘Yeah,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘I bet it’s _epic.’_

‘Definitely,’ Ezekiel said, smiling back at her while a low hum and a blue flickering light filled the room. ‘Come on, Kiwi. Let’s go home.’

‘OK, Yodad.’


	24. The Mural

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake and Cassandra have a surprise prepared for when Kiwi and Ezekiel return from London...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short interlude, because this got too big to be tacked on to the last chapter, and it does not fit with the theme of the next one... but it's even more family fluffiness, so I couldn't exactly leave it out either. Have fun!

When they had finally carried all Kiwi’s stuff into the Annex, and were waiting for the Back Door to reconnect to Jake’s apartment, Jake took a step forward and turned around, looking at Kiwi and Ezekiel with a grin that was almost bashful. ‘Ehm, can I just ask you,’ he started, grinning even wider as he caught Ezekiel’s raised eyebrow. ‘Can I just ask you, not to start shovin’ boxes in there immediately? Cassie and I… we’ve got something we wanna show you first.’

‘What did you do, cowboy?’ Ezekiel asked with a grin that was almost as wide as Jake’s. ‘Just please tell me you didn’t paint the entire place a fetching pink, ‘cause let me tell you now that Kiwi’s favorite color is blue.’

‘I knew that,’ Jake said, turning back around as the door finally lit up. ‘And that’s not it. Just, come on and you’ll see.’

When they entered the room that was to become Kiwi’s bedroom, Ezekiel was a little too busy looking at the furniture to notice immediately. Cassandra really had done a nice job putting the place together, he thought, as he took in the colorful bedspread, the equally colorful rug on the floor, and the clean, white bedframe and wardrobe to calm things down. A bright robot night light shone on the table that served as a night stand, but it wasn’t until Jake had turned on the lamp on the ceiling and gently told him to look at the wall behind him that Ezekiel found out why Kiwi hadn’t said a word since they entered the room.

She had been too busy staring at the painting.

Or rather, the mural, because that was what it was. From one corner to the other, the entire wall had been used to create a painting of a forest scene, with half a dozen animals in various shapes and sizes, lounging about under, in or above the trees.

Then Ezekiel looked even closer. And had his breath knocked right out of him, because those animals looked awfully familiar. For instance, there was a large snowy owl, sitting high on one of the branches and looking sternly down through his little round glasses at the rabble beneath him.

The snowy owl was wearing a lab coat and a bowtie. And he was sitting next to a raven wearing a tweed coat and a rather wild expression, with even the feathers on his head standing up in all directions.

The owl and the raven were both looking at the ground, where a large, blonde bear was standing guard between the trees. She was accompanied by a bullmastiff. A huge, grim looking dog, wearing combat boots and honest-to-god dog tags. Ezekiel didn’t even know how Jake and Cassandra had managed to capture the likeness of someone they’d never met that well, but before he could ask, he noticed the little wallaby in the background and the sudden lump in his throat made talking a bit difficult.

And these were all in the background. These were all important, yes, but the main event was taking place in a clearing between the trees, where a wild-haired kiwi bird was having the time of her life. With her was a large, orange cat with blue eyes and a flowery dress, and an even larger, dark brown wolf wearing a cowboy hat and watching over the cat and the bird as they played. Meanwhile, a kangaroo in sunglasses, wearing a shit-eating grin and a shirt that said ‘ _Awesome’_ , was bouncing across the grass towards them, about to join in the fun.

The entire painting was so vivid that Ezekiel could almost hear the conversations going on, could almost hear the laughter and the stern voice of the snowy owl warning the kiwi bird not to make such a ruckus while the cat smiled and the wolf grinned, shaking his head and telling the owl not to be such a downer.

‘Do you like it?’ said a soft voice behind him.

Ezekiel didn’t reply. He just watched as Kiwi, the real Kiwi, walked up to the wall and reached out to touch the picture, almost trance-like. ‘Oh my god,’ Ezekiel heard her mutter when she recognized the bullmastiff. ‘Oh,’ when she found the bear and the wallaby, ‘oh wow,’ when her hand reached the cat and the wolf and the kangaroo. The owl and the raven were too high for her to reach, but she stared up at them with wide eyes, shock and awe written large on her face as she drank everything in.

‘I think they do,’ said another, gruffer voice gently. _Then_ Ezekiel turned around.

‘Who… how… guys, what the…’ He gestured, then faltered, at a complete loss for words.

‘It was Cassie’s idea,’ Jake said, stepping into the room to wrap a large arm around Ezekiel’s waist before he fell over. ‘She came up with the animals, I just drew ‘em on the wall.’

‘He just drew ‘em on the wall, he says,’ Cassandra said as she came up to Ezekiel’s other side. ‘He did the design and painted everything himself. Wouldn’t even let me into the room until it was done.’

Ezekiel was about to open his mouth and start saying ‘thank you’ about a thousand times, but Kiwi got there first. She turned around to face him, noticed Jake and Cassandra had entered the room and immediately barreled towards them, first launching herself at Cassandra and knocking the wind right out of her before she let go and wrapped herself around Jake, babbling incoherent but grateful nonsense all the way.

Jake hugged her back just as tight, rocking her he a little from side to side. ‘Welcome home, Junior,’ Ezekiel heard him say, right before Cassandra turned and pulled Ezekiel into a tight hug as well. ‘Welcome home.’


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘If you really want to go visit your mom, then we’ll go. But _after_ we’ve dealt with Andi, okay? One thing at a time.’
> 
> Well, Andi has been dealt with. And Ezekiel promised, so here they are.

The early morning air in Auckland was chilly and fragrant, a light breeze that tugged at Ezekiel’s jacket and Kiwi’s curls as they stood in front of the large, metal gates. Behind the gates, the grass and the undergrowth were still covered in shadow, a dark blue haze that the sun had not been able to dispel yet. A gravel track shone white in the dim light, lined with tall trees that rustled quietly overhead. The only sound came from a lone bird somewhere in one of the trees, announcing that it was, in fact, morning, and doing so as loudly as possible.

‘Is it open yet?’ Kiwi asked, biting her lip and inching closer towards Ezekiel. The gravel crunched and skittered under her sneakers as she shuffled her feet, unable to keep standing still until Ezekiel placed a hand on her shoulder.

Credit where credit was due: all through the planning of this trip, she had shown no hesitation or doubt whatsoever, and Ezekiel could not blame her for getting some last-minute jitters. They had discussed it at length, with Ezekiel explaining as best he could what they were going to do, and what might or might not happen, while Kiwi listened and took everything in with a kind of grim determination. This morning, before they left, was the first time Ezekiel had seen her a bit unsure about the whole endeavor. She had tried not to show it, but after Cassandra had reassured her for the third time in fifteen minutes that the outfit they had picked out together was fine, that she looked great and she shouldn’t worry, Kiwi had fallen quiet and retreated to a corner of the Annex, waiting until it was time to go.

‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Ezekiel replied. He released Kiwi’s shoulder and took her hand instead, walking towards the gates with an assuredness he didn’t really feel. He _was_ sure the gates were open; Ezekiel Jones could spot a locked door a mile off.

No, the gates weren’t the problem. They swung open smoothly, despite their weight. It was wat lay behind them that made Ezekiel look down, squeeze Kiwi’s hand tight for a moment and softly ask: ‘Are you ready?’

Kiwi nodded, still looking a bit unsure, before she swallowed and visibly steeled herself. She nodded again, squeezing Ezekiel’s hand in return. ‘Yeah.’

‘Alright then,’ Ezekiel said, guiding her through the gates and closing them again behind him with a clang that sounded through the morning stillness like a bell. The birdsong fell quiet for a moment, almost as if the bird took offense at being drowned out, but then it started up again, even more vociferous than before while Ezekiel and Kiwi made their way inside, following the meandering path towards their destination.

\---

_‘Do I have to call you dad now?’ the kid (_ his _kid, Ezekiel still wasn’t entirely used to that idea) wanted to know as Ezekiel put a plate of grilled cheese in front of her._

_Ezekiel paused because this was yet another thing about suddenly having a kid that he had_ not _thought about. For fuck’s sake, he was twenty-two years old, he was_ not _ready for some freckled, gap-toothed scamp to start calling him ‘dad’ like he was a thirty-five year old sad office worker with an equally sad office worker wife, two point three kids and a dog._

_‘Do you want to?’ he asked, as the kid kept staring at him, munching her cheese and waiting for an answer. ‘I mean, you can call me dad if you like. But you don’t have to.’_

_The kid swallowed and studied him for another long moment, considering this. ‘I didn’t like my dads,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘But I like you, and I don’t want to call you something I don’t like.’_

_Sound logic, Ezekiel thought, trying not to get too excited about the ‘I like you’. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘Do you want to call me something else?’_

_Another bite, more munching and studying before the kid’s eye fell on the bookshelf behind the table. More specifically, the Yoda figurine on top of it._

_‘Mommy used to have that too,’ she said with a nod before she took another bite. Ezekiel wasn’t sure if this was an answer or if it was just a five-year-old with a short attention span, but an idea sparked nonetheless._

_‘Okay,’ he said again with a grin. ‘You wanna call me Yoda, then? ‘Cause I would be okay with that.’_

_The kid swallowed and grinned widely, her face already impossibly sticky with cheese. ‘Yo_ dad,’ _she announced, and Ezekiel could not have been prouder._

_\---_

After five minutes of walking in silence, the path started branching off into lanes, left and right, at regular intervals. They took the fourth one on the right, walking past slabs of black granite and light grey marble until they halted at a patch of open grass, with a white boulder at the far end. The boulder might be small, but it was large enough for the black lettering to proclaim:

MADELINE HENRIETTA WALKER

09/26/1989 – 08/30/2012

SLEEP ON NOW AND TAKE YOUR REST

The grave was bare in comparison to some of the others, but the headstone was clean, the grass was trimmed short and any overgrowth and weeds had been removed. The only decoration, apart from the headstone, were a bouquet of long-stemmed flowers, a small plastic figurine of a wallaby that looked a little worse for wear and a framed picture that looked suspiciously new. That was no coincidence; somewhere in the week before, Ezekiel had spent a long night making sure everything was as clean and presentable as possible before bringing Kiwi down here. He had not been looking forward to finding a neglected, overgrown gravesite and then having to explain to his kid why things looked the way they did.

As they stood there, side by side looking down in silence, a gust of wind blew past and caused gooseflesh in Ezekiel’s neck. He felt Kiwi shiver next to him as well, so he reached out and started rubbing her shoulder before he looked down and caught the expression on her face. She was staring at the picture, dark brown eyes locked on a face that was smiling warmer and brighter than Ezekiel had ever seen it in life.

He didn’t say anything and he didn’t try to pull Kiwi into a hug. Instead he waited, a comforting hand on her back, until Kiwi took a deep, deep breath. Her eyes scrunched shut and for a heart-stopping second, her face started to crack. Ezekiel immediately got down on his knees while wrapping one arm around her waist, ready to catch her if she needed him to. Kiwi took another heaving gulp of air, her skinny frame impossibly tense, before she breathed out and something shifted. Bit by bit, her shoulders and then the rest of her started to relax. Her breathing steadied again and the expression on her face smoothed out, until she opened her eyes and looked at Ezekiel with something that was not quite a smile.

‘Hey,’ Ezekiel said, so softly it barely broke through the quiet of the cemetery. ‘You okay, Kiwi?’

Despite her eyes brimming with tears, Kiwi nodded, unable to vocalize anything. She swallowed before she looked at the headstone again and Ezekiel felt her relax even more.

Now he did want to pull her closer, but as he tugged her shirt, Kiwi shook her head and moved away. Ezekiel didn’t try and stop her. He merely let his arm drop from around her waist and stood up, taking a step back at the same time. This way, he stood behind Kiwi as she came to grips with everything she was feeling. Present and ready if she needed him, but not in the way.

‘Dad?’ a small voice asked after a long pause. The sun was getting stronger now, dispelling the chill and making the white boulder glow silver against the grass.

‘Yes, Kiwi?’

‘Could you… I mean, would you mind if…’ Kiwi paused, this time not overcome with emotion but apparently struggling to find the right words.

‘Anything you need, remember?’ Ezekiel said gently when the silence held on. ‘Just tell me what it is.’

Kiwi paused for another second before she turned around. ‘Could you maybe go away?’ she asked, giving Ezekiel a pleading look. ‘I… I think I want to be alone for a while. But it might take a long time, so if you don’t want to or, or if you want to go back home then…’

‘Hey,’ Ezekiel said, stopping her in her tracks. ‘Like I said, anything you need.’

He looked around. ‘Look, I’ll just go sit on that bench over there, okay? You take your time, and come find me when you’re ready.’

\---

_Mark was never convicted. Oh, he was arrested and spent some time behind bars, but there had never been enough evidence to even bring the case to court. After all, Madeline had been found at the bottom of the stairs, and who says she didn’t trip and cause all those injuries herself? You could hurt yourself really bad, just by falling down the stairs. So badly even that it left boot prints in your sides and broke all your teeth._

_It didn’t matter. Six months later, Mark Bray found himself without a job, without a home, and with a pile of debt that blocked out the sun. And it was weird: every time when it looked like he would get back on his feet. Every time when he got a job interview, he found a place to crash for a while, or he even managed to clear some debt away. Something happened to pull the rug and make him start over from scratch. The job interview got rescheduled without notice, so he missed it. The place he’d found was shut down and demolished within two weeks. One debt got cleared away, but another, bigger one, reared its head immediately._

_Funny how these things happen._

_\---_

Ezekiel leaned back on the wooden bench, stretched out his arms across the back, closed his eyes and let the sun soak into his bones for a moment. He had been here for a while now, as Kiwi had warned him he would be, but he didn’t mind. The cemetery was quiet, peaceful by nature, and although Ezekiel usually reveled in the noise and chaos that was life in a magic Library, this was nice too. For a change.

He opened his eyes again and looked across the yard at Kiwi. She was sitting on the grass, with her back against her mother’s headstone and the framed picture in her lap. Ezekiel could see she was talking to it, and he watched with a soft smile, occasionally glancing about and signaling to the two or three other mourners that drifted by that _no, it’s okay, she’s not alone._

A movement at the other end of the cemetery caught his eye, and his smile grew wider for a second before he gave a solemn nod. News traveled fast in the supernatural world, fast and far and apparently, all the way to Auckland. In the past few weeks, wherever the Librarians went, there had always been… someone. Or something. Watching, not engaging. Always keeping a respectful distance while trying to catch a glimpse of the first Child of the Library in history.

Most of the time, they stayed too far for them to make out what it was. Other times, not so much. Ezekiel would never forget the day that the three of them had taken Kiwi to the park, as families do, when suddenly, there had been the sound of hooves thundering away. Kiwi and Cassandra had gasped, Jake had started to swear and Ezekiel had turned around just in time to see an honest-to-god centaur vanishing between the trees.

This had caused some heated debate back at the Annex, because neither Eve nor Ezekiel were comfortable with bumping into all kinds of creatures without notice. In the end, however, they had reasoned that mere curiosity had never harmed anyone. If this meant that there were occasionally a couple of _very_ weirdly dressed people wandering past the apartment, or Kiwi’s new school, or St. John’s Bridge, then well. They would just have to get used to that.

‘And who knows,’ Jake had finally said with a crooked grin. ‘With the fear of Jenkins _and_ Echidna instilled in ‘em, one or two of ‘em might be on our side from now on. That’d be a nice change.’

That had sold the deal for Ezekiel at least. Which was why he smiled again and let himself relax, content in the knowledge that Kiwi was as safe as she could be.

(And which, coincidentally, was why Jenkins had found a box on his desk a couple of days later. The box contained one ticket to an all-expenses paid, week-long stay at a luxury resort in the Bahamas, a couple of _very_ hard to obtain boxes of tea, an even harder to obtain bottle of metheglin, made to an ancient and probably illegal recipe, and, for good measure, a couple of ounces of frankincense and myrrh, with a note saying _I’ll get to the opium later._ The box had vanished without a trace within the hour, but Jenkins had been in a _very_ good mood for the rest of the week).

\---

_‘Dad!’_

_Ezekiel opened his arms just in time to catch Kiwi barreling towards him, cheering all the way. ‘Hey, Kiwi,’ he laughed, trying not to choke as she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight. ‘How’ve you been? You been good to Poppins?’_

_‘Yes,’ Kiwi said, so decidedly that Ezekiel had to laugh again. ‘I bet you have,’ he said, holding her tight for another moment before he released her. ‘And I bet you got a ton of crazy stories to tell, right?’_

_Kiwi nodded, eyes shining bright as she launched into a vivid tale, containing multiple evil teachers, an even eviler janitor and, quite possibly, a talking dog. Ezekiel listened, an enraptured grin spreading on his face as they sat themselves down on the couch, with Kiwi nestling up against him immediately. Ezekiel wrapped an arm around her skinny shoulders, pulling her even closer and nuzzling a kiss into her hair as she talked. He had missed this._

_Apparently, so had Kiwi._

_‘You’ve been away a long time,’ she said softly after the story had finished and the evils of her school world had been vanquished. ‘Longer than other times, I mean.’_

_‘I know,’ Ezekiel replied, just as softly. ‘And I’m sorry. But. Uhm. I kinda got a crazy story to tell you as well, because I think I just became some kind of superhero.’_

_Kiwi gasped, looking at him wide-eyed before her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you were a super thief already,’ she said, a little doubtfully. ‘Can you be a super thief and a superhero at the same time?’_

_‘I don’t know,’ Ezekiel said. Honest to God, he didn’t. ‘But I suppose I’m gonna find out.’_

_Kiwi still didn’t look convinced, so Ezekiel grinned and tugged gently at a stray curl. ‘It’s gonna be okay, Kiwi,’ he said, smiling as she snuggled closer against him in response. ‘Now, do you wanna hear how I fought against a Minotaur?’_

_\---_

The shadow between the trees at the far end stood still for a moment, then vanished. Ezekiel glanced at Kiwi, still deep in conversation. By now, she had to stop talking to wipe her eyes from time to time, and by the looks of it, things weren’t going as smoothly for her as Ezekiel perhaps had hoped. She hadn’t called for him, though, had given no indication that she wanted him to come back. So Ezekiel remained put, keeping a watchful eye but not intervening. He just let Kiwi work through this at her own pace, in her own space, until she was ready to go back.

It took her the better part of the morning. Ezekiel had lost track of time in the stillness of his surroundings, but the sun had reached a high and almost sweltering point when Kiwi finally looked up. She took a deep breath, rubbing at her eyes one last time before she put the picture frame down against the boulder, as carefully as if it was made out of spun glass. Another pause followed, in which she visibly gathered herself together again. At last, she got up, a little stiffly after sitting down on the ground for so long, and started to make her way over to the bench where Ezekiel was sitting.

Ezekiel didn’t say anything while she clambered on to the bench, just held out an arm for her to curl up under and pulled her close as she buried her face into his shirt for a moment. Not crying, not even sniffling, just breathing in the quiet while Ezekiel stroked her back and waited patiently for her to come down completely.

‘That was a lot, wasn’t it?’ he murmured at last, when a subtle shift in Kiwi’s breathing told him at last that she was getting close to being okay again.

Kiwi nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, voice muffled by Ezekiel’s shoulder. ‘It was… different than I thought.’

She drew back, breathing in deeply. There were streaks on her face and her eyes were puffy, but she was smiling nonetheless. ‘But it was good too.’

‘Different but good?’ Ezekiel asked, smiling back and reaching out to wipe away the dried tears. Kiwi nodded again. ‘Yeah. Different but good.’

\---

_Any and all doubts Kiwi might have had about her dad’s new profession disappeared the moment her bedroom door lit up blue and opened up to reveal the Annex. ‘That. Is._ Awesome.’

_She looked at Ezekiel, mouth and eyes wide open. ‘Can I go there? Dad, please, please, can I?’_

_‘Not yet, Kiwi,’ Ezekiel replied, grinning at his kid being awestruck in the face of magic. ‘When you’re a little older, I promise, but not yet.’_

_\---_

‘What did you tell her?’ Ezekiel asked as they walked back through the cemetery to the gates. Kiwi was still quiet, but this was a more content, less tense kind of quiet. The kind of stillness that comes after the storm, instead of before.

‘A lot,’ Kiwi replied after a second’s pause. ‘I told her about Andi and the Library. And about Uncle Jake and Cassandra and Mister Jenkins and Eve, and how we’re all going to live together. Except for Mister Jenkins and Eve, I mean.’

She fell quiet. ‘I think she liked that,’ she said eventually, so softly Ezekiel almost didn’t catch it.

‘You know what,’ Ezekiel said, just as softly as he stopped and looked over his shoulder, back at the place where he knew the little white boulder to be, even though it had disappeared from view by now. ‘You know what, I think she does too.’

\---

_‘You know, I never got the chance to thank you,’ Ezekiel said in a low voice that barely cut through the darkness around him._

_The small boulder, glowing white in the gloom now that Ezekiel had scraped four years’ worth of moss and dirt off of it, didn’t reply. The only sound in the cemetery was the rustling of insect night life and the occasional hoot of a lonely owl. The moon hung huge overhead, casting silver shadows on the grass and watching as Ezekiel continued: ‘But just so you know. Thank you. And, well.’_

_He fell quiet, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘You probably know this already. But I thought I should tell you anyway, that she’s doing okay. She’s fine and she’s… she’s happy now.’_

_Still no response, which was good, in a way. Ezekiel was not superstitious, but being in a cemetery on your own, in the middle of the night, would make anyone wary._

_‘She’s gonna be okay,’ he said again, straightening up and gathering his supplies. ‘She’s gonna have the weirdest life, but she’ll be okay. I promise.’_

_He paused for a moment before he nodded once more and turned around. In the darkness, the small white boulder watched him go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all folks!
> 
> (No, it's not all. There's one person who's been conspicuously absent all this time, and he'll find out what happened in the epilogue. But as for the story, that's all!)
> 
> Thank you all so much for all the feedback, comments, kudos, for sticking with me for five months, 25 chapters and over 70k words (holy shit!). You have no idea how grateful I am for all the love Kiwi has gotten throughout all this, and I cannot thank you all enough. 
> 
> Also, if any of you have any ideas what I should do with my life now, I'm open to suggestions...


	26. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the one person who's been conspicuously absent all this time...

The next time he was invited to arbitrate in a sea folk council, Flynn Carsen mused as he spluttered to a stand on a rocky beach, _he_ was going to decide where the negotiations were taking place. Somewhere like the Mediterranean perhaps, or the South Pacific. As long as it was _not_ the Bering Sea, which was of course beautiful, with an incredible ecological diversity thanks to the nutrients found in the cold water. On his way up to the surface, Flynn had counted no less than a dozen whales, of three different species solemnly drifting by in the deep. There had been seals and sea lions and, as he went up higher and higher, cormorants and puffins and albatross diving into the water trying to catch their meal for the day. One large, white shape in the distance might even have been a polar bear, but although Flynn _loved_ polar bears when he was a kid, he had not been overly excited to get a closer look.

However. All the biodiversity and polar bears in the world could not make up for the fact that the rocky beach he now stood on was also very, very cold. It was a good thing that the sea folk had been so considerate, and let him use one of their special bubbles that had kept him dry and made sure he would not die of decompression sickness, but still. Flynn was standing in little more than his tweed jacket and corduroys, out in the open on a bare patch of land, with icy water lapping at his shoes.

The sooner he would make it home, the better. He set off at a brisk pace, trying to move as much as possible to keep his blood from freezing as he walked in the direction of the shed where a Back Door was already waiting for him, lending a blue glow to the otherwise black, white and grey world around him.

As he stumbled through it, right into the heavenly warmth of the Annex, he was met with an unusual silence. This was odd, and a little disappointing, Flynn had to admit as he looked around, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them to make sure his fingers were not falling off. Not that he had _expected_ some kind of hail-the-prodigal-returns welcome party, but still. He had been away for almost three weeks, surely there would be _someone_ around to welcome him back? Preferably Eve Baird of course, but he would have settled for Jenkins, Cassandra, maybe even Ezekiel if there was absolutely no one else around.

But the Annex was empty. There was no Eve, no Jenkins, no _anyone._

Or perhaps there was. Because while Flynn was busy swallowing the lump of unease and weird hurt that had formed somewhere in his stomach region, someone emerged from the direction of the kitchen. A rather small someone, with bushy hair and dark eyes, carrying a grilled cheese on a plate and a cup of tea. Apparently this required so much concentration that she (or at least, it looked like a she) didn’t even notice Flynn standing there, blinking in baffled bewilderment as he watched her carefully put the plate and cup down on Jenkins’ desk before she hoisted herself up on to the chair.

‘Uhm,’ he managed. ‘Hello?’

The child (or at least, it looked like a child) looked up, her face splitting into a wide smile. ‘Oh my god, hi! Are you the Flynn?’

Well, this was interesting. A presumably human, presumably child, presumably girl, sitting at Jenkins’ desk, munching a grilled cheese and sipping tea like she owned the place and calling him _the_ Flynn, like she already knew who he was. This was _more_ than interesting. This was puzzling and perplexing, a perplexing puzzle that made him ponder who this peculiar person might be.

His head still reeling from that last plethora of pees, Flynn hastily put his briefcase down. ‘You know who I am?’

The girl(?) nodded. And took another bite of grilled cheese as she studied him, giving him a long look before she announced: ‘You look different than I thought you would.’

From the quintillion questions racing through Flynn’s head, the one that made it out was: ‘How did you think I would look?’

Which was absolutely useless, it would tell him nothing about the identity of this entity, but at least it made her smile again. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘But you’re not as old as I thought. And you don’t wear glasses. I always thought you would wear glasses.’

No matter how hard he tried, Flynn could not place the girls’ accent. There was the unequivocally British pronunciation of _glasses,_ but the way she said _old_ and _always_ was definitely not. That sounded Australian, or quite possibly New Zealand, somewhere in the Oceanic region in any case. There was even a hint of a Boston accent in there, in the way she said _wear._

Oh, this was more than puzzling. This was _baffling._ In a matter of seconds, Flynn had forgotten all about the sea folk conclave, the bitter cold of the Bering Sea and his disappointment at an empty Annex. Here was a new mystery, right in front of him, and he had not found a single clue yet. This was _brilliant._

‘Well, I’m not,’ Flynn said, stepping closer. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind, could you hand me that letter opener over there, please?’

‘Sure,’ the girl said, taking the heavy, iron letter opener out of Jenkins’ In tray and handing it over. She frowned a little at the request, and even more when Flynn took it and immediately put it on another desk without even looking at it, but then she returned to her cup of tea.

‘So you’re not fae,’ Flynn said, making the girl give him an odd look which he shrugged off as he went on, pacing around her like a biologist examining a new species: ‘You’re not fae, or anything of the kind or at least, you’re no _Western_ kind of fae. Of course, grilled cheese should’ve been a clue, fae always prefer something light whenever they stop by. If they eat at all, that is.’

And they usually did not make a noise like a clogged drain while sipping their tea, but Flynn decided, very politely, not to mention that. ‘Perhaps you’re from the East? There’s a hint of that about your eyes, but I know quite a bit about Asian mythology and folklore and you do not resemble _any_ of the known supernatural entities that reside over there. So unless Mr. Drake has found a new and _very_ strange disguise, I’m going with the probability you are, in fact, human.’

The definitely human girl had stopped eating and was now watching him intently, a strange grin on her face as she listened to Flynn’s rapid reasoning. ‘You know,’ she said, leaning back in her chair, ‘you could just ask me who I am.’

There was a sound from the landing above, almost as if someone was violently smothering their laughter. Looking up, however, Flynn saw nothing but dark and empty bookshelves. Back to the mystery at hand, then.

‘Oh, but where’s the fun in that?’ he shot back, eyes gleaming and almost jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Let’s see, we’ve established that you’re human. Now as to what you are doing here, and how you _got_ in here in the first place.’ He started pacing up and down the length of the Annex, then turned around. ‘Does Jenkins know you’re here?’

The girl nodded. ‘Yeah. He’s in the Library, but he told me to wait here. Do you want me to go and get him?’

Flynn shot up straight, raising both hands. ‘No, no no no no! Don’t go anywhere, not until I’ve figured this out.’

‘Okay.’ The girl sat back, seemingly content with being an object of observation.

‘Let’s see,’ Flynn said, pacing back and planting his elbows on Jenkins’ desk so he could get a closer look. ‘You’re about ten years old, I would say, and your skin tone and hair say North Africa, your eyes say South East Asia and your accent is mostly, not all, but mostly Oceania. Your clothes are brand new and obviously bought here in the US, but the way you have made your tea says Europe, quite possibly the UK. You are, truly, a child of the world. I do _not_ know where I was going with this.’

He stood up straight again. ‘You are a mystery child, and a mystery child usually means a case. But I can see from here that the Clippings Book hasn’t moved in two days, and even so. There is usually a lot more running about and shouting in here when we have a case and besides you and me, _there’s_ _nobody here!’_

That last bit was shouted at the ceiling, and in vain. It completely failed to, say, bring Eve Baird rushing in to fling herself at the hero returned. _Most_ unfair.

‘Unless! Unless the case is already solved, but if so, then why are you still here? Why haven’t they returned you to where you came from? Unless! Unless they can’t, because… why couldn’t they take you back?’

Flynn pondered this question for a long moment, silently watched by the mystery girl. She seemed amused for some reason, but also impressed with his reasoning so far. He must be on the right track.

A thought hit him, and his face fell. ‘Oh no.’

That would make sense. It would make sense of the accent, the disconnect between skin tone, hair and eyes, the brand new clothes and the fact that she had not been returned to her loving parents after her case had been closed.

‘You’re a time traveler, aren’t you?’ he asked, and the wide-eyed shock on the girls’ face told him that he had guessed it in one. ‘You are, you’re a time traveler! You’re come here from the past, somehow, and they have not figured out how to bring you back yet!’

His voice grew soft, gentle. Confident as this child looked, she must be frightened to find herself in this strange time, in this even stranger place and Flynn felt his heart break a little. ‘It’s okay, child,’ he said, edging closer towards the desk again. He moved slowly, trying to exude comfort and care from every angle, until he stood face to face with the girl again. ‘It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, I promise. I’ll help them figure this out, and we’ll have you back with your mommy and daddy in a jiff.’

‘That’s okay,’ the girl said, backing away from him in the chair a little. Her voice sounded strangled and Flynn couldn’t make out the expression on her face as she said: ‘You… you don’t have to take me back. My dad… well, my mom’s dead, but my dad is right here.’

Now a faint unease was starting to tingle at the base of Flynn’s spine. ‘Why would your dad be here?’ he asked, and the aforementioned unease only grew uneasier in the face of the child’s sudden grin. The child’s sudden, wide and awfully _familiar_ grin.

‘Oh no,’ Flynn breathed. He started backing away, slowly and then faster until he bumped backwards into Eve’s desk. He sagged down, with his jaw dropped to somewhere below his knees and eyes the size of Nessie’s. ‘Oh no.’

‘Because he’s a Librarian,’ the child said, torpedoing any hope, any last hope at all that Flynn had harbored that _this was not happening, no no no no no no, this was not happening._ ‘And I think he’s upstairs.’

The muffled noises coming from the landing were getting louder now, but Flynn still didn’t seem to hear. He just sat on Eve’s desk, motionless as he gaped at this… this… _no._

‘What’s your name?’ he finally managed, bracing himself for the answer.

‘Emmie,’ the child said. ‘But everybody here calls me Junior. Except my dad, because he’s my dad and that would be weird, but I guess you could call me that too. If you want to.’ She grinned again. ‘Just don’t call my dad Senior, because Uncle Jake did that like last week and he says his laptop is still acting weird and not working properly.’

Before Flynn had had time to process this, another voice cut through the haze of terror and panic swirling around him: ‘Junior, time to go. Jenkins is waiting for you in the Magical Birds’ wing.’

The girl (Flynn was _not_ ready to call her by any other name) cheered, swallowed the final chunk of grilled cheese in one go, washed it down with the rest of her tea and then practically bolted out of the Annex, only stopping to announce ‘he’s gonna show me a _phoenix’_ while passing by a still stunned Flynn.

Then she ran out the door and vanished down the hallway. Flynn turned around to watch her go, and _there_ was Eve Baird, leaning against the doorway and looking sternly at the landing at the other side of the Annex, from which three different and distinctive peals of laughter were now growing too loud to be ignored.

The attempt at being stern was rather foiled by the way Eve’s brilliant blue eyes sparkled with laughter as well. Flynn had spent three long, water-soaked weeks thinking about those eyes, and that laughter, and the entirety of Eve Baird in all her Guardian glory. But as he slowly made his way over to her, on legs that still felt rather wobbly, the only words he could find were: ‘I’ve missed something, haven’t I?’

Eve smiled. Cupped his face with both hands and kissed him so fiercely, all Flynn's racing thoughts ground to a stop for one glorious moment. 'Eh,' she said, after they finally broke apart, shaking her head and laughing at his befuddlement. 'Not much.'


End file.
